PHILIPPA GREGORY
Fallen Skies
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1993
Copyright © Philippa Gregory Ltd 1993
Philippa Gregory asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007233069
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007370108
Version: 20180216
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Private Frederick John Carter of the 11th Scottish Rifles who died at Salonika, 12th September 1917, aged twenty-four
Epigraph
Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. Weve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.
D. H. LAWRENCE, Lady Chatterleys Lover, 1928
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Stephens mouth was filling with mud, wet slurry pressed on his eyelids, slid into his nostrils like earthworms. He flailed helplessly against the weight of it on his face, on his body, in his hair. He felt the silty terrible power of it pinning him down. When he opened his mouth to scream it poured into his throat, he could taste its wetness: the terrible non-taste of earth.
He choked on it, retching and heaving for breath, spitting and hawking. He was drowning in it, he was being crushed by its weight, he was being buried alive. His hands like paddles, he scrabbled against it, trying to claw a space for his face, and then he grabbed linen sheet, woollen blankets, counterpane, and he opened his eyes, clogged only by sleep, and saw the white ceiling of his home.
He whooped like a sick child, gasping in terror, rubbing his face roughly, dragging his palm across his lips, across his tongue where the dead taste still lingered. He whispered Oh God, oh God, pitifully, over and over again. Oh God, oh God.
Then he turned his head and saw her. In the doorway was his mother, her dressing-gown pulled on over her thick cotton nightdress, her tired face set in lines of fear and something else. He stared at her, trying to read the expression on her face: disapproval.
His bedside table was overturned, the ugly pottery electric lamp broken, his jug of water spilling into a puddle on the carpet. Im sorry, he said. He was humble, ashamed. I was dreaming.
She came into the room and lifted up the table. She set the empty jug and the pieces of the bedside light on it in mute accusation. I wish youd let me call Dr Mobey, she said. You were having a fit.
He shook his head quickly, his anger rising. It was nothing. A bad dream.
You should take one of my sleeping tablets.
Stephen dreaded deep sleep more than anything else. In deep sleep the dream would go on, the dream of the collapsed dug-out, the dream of scrabbling and suffocating, and only after a lifetime of screaming horror, the bliss of feeling the earth shift and tumble and Coventrys gentle hands scraping the soil from his face and hearing his voice saying, Youre all right, Sir. Im here now. Well have you out in a jiffy. Stephen had wept then, wept like a baby. There had been no-one but Coventry to see his cowards tears, and he had wiped them away with dirty bleeding hands. Coventry had dug bare-handed, refusing to put a spade in the earth. He had scrabbled in the mud like a dog for its master and then they had both wept together; like new-found lovers, like reunited twins.
Ill go downstairs and make myself a brew, he said. You get to bed. I dont want any tablets.
Oh, go to sleep, Stephens mother said irritably. Its four in the morning. Far too late for tea.
He got out of bed and threw his dressing-gown around his shoulders. When he stood, his height and maleness could dominate her. Now he was the master of the house, not a sick man screaming with nightmares. I think Ill have a brew and a cigarette, he said with the upper-class drawl he had learned from the senior officers in the trenches. Then Ill sleep. You toddle off, old lady.
She turned, obedient but resentful. Well, dont make a mess for Cook.
He shepherded her out of the room and she shied away from him as if fear were contagious, as if terror were catching.
I wish youd let me call Dr Mobey, she said again, pausing on the landing before she turned into her bedroom. He says its very common. They have all sorts of things to cure nervous troubles. Its just hysteria.
Stephen smoothed his moustache, his broad handsome face regaining its confident good looks. He laughed. Im not a hysteric, he said. His voice was rich with his male pride. Not me, he said, smiling. I just get the odd bad dream.
He turned away from her and loped down the stairs. The hall was dark but the fanlight above the front door showed him the green baize door that separated the domestic quarters in the basement from the rest of the house. He opened the door and went quietly down the back stairs.
The kitchen was light; it was warm from the kitchen range. Coventry was at the stove, warming a teapot. He looked up when Stephen entered and took him in, took him all in, with one comprehensive glance. Stephen sighed with relief at the sight of him. Had a bit of a dream, he said. Fancied a cup of tea, and here you are. Ministering bloody angel.
Coventry smiled his slow crooked smile. As Stephen watched, he spooned five heaped spoonfuls of tea from the caddy into the teapot, adding them to the old dregs left in the pot. He poured boiling water on the stale brew and stood the pot on the range for a few moments, then took up the two mugs. He put four spoonfuls of sugar into each mug and poured a dark stream of tea from the pot. It tasted stewed, and sour from the old tea, as strong as poison and teeth-grittingly sweet. It was how it had tasted in the trenches. It was that taste which told you that you were alive, that you had come back, against all odds, from a night patrol, from a dawn attack, from a lonely dangerous snipers mission. The strong sweet taste of tea was the taste of survival. The taste of mud was death. Stephen sank into one of the chairs before the range and put his slippered feet against the warm oven door.
Good Christ, Coventry! I wish you would speak again, he said. I wish I could stop dreaming. He sipped a taste of tea, the strong sour brew rinsing his mouth clean of the taste of dream-mud. I wish it had never happened, Stephen said with rare bleak honesty. I wish to Christ it had never happened at all.
Stephen Winters first saw Lily on the stage of the Palais music hall on the opening night of the first show, 5 May 1920: her debut. He missed her solo song he was at the bar and then in the gents. But in the can-can finale his cousin David Walters, on a flying visit to Portsmouth, had nudged him and said: See that girl? Cant half kick. Bet shes French.
Damn the French, Stephen said automatically. Beer at five francs a glass and then someones peed in it.
See that girl? David persisted. Pretty girl.
Stephen had looked, blearily, through the glass window of the bar and seen Lily dive down into the splits and then fling her head up, beaming. She looked ready to laugh for joy.
Oh yes, Stephen said, surprised. Oh yes.
Pretty girl, David repeated drunkenly.
They watched while the orchestra galloped into the walk-down and the artists came downstage and took their bows. There was something about Lilys face that appealed to Stephen. Something he could not name.
I know what, he said suddenly to David. She looks like the girls used to look before.
No! Shes got short hair. None of them had short hair before.