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A moment, a flash of lightning: no one can own a moment of nature. No one can own an emotion. This is what Tom repeated to himself in the dark moments. The valuable things, the true meat and salt of life, could never be packaged and sold. But “they” tried, because it was the only thing that validated their brittle lives. They own. And when they can’t own they steal, they appropriate. This is all the rich do.
She was the anamoly, though: that imperfection that ensured her perfection in his eyes.
She was so unassuming with this beauty of hers’. Uncomfortable with it, almost. Or simply unaware. He was fairly sure she’d never considered herself in such gross aesthetic terms. Her spirit was one who saw beauty in imperfections and the quiet corners of life (she professed a love of reading alone by the fireplace with a cup of tea). So that is how she was as a nurse: gentle, tender, every movement spoke of her. ‘Sybil the person’ and ‘Sybil the nurse’ were not distinct categories, and he knew that was what she wanted: to be a coherent whole.
That innocence both attracted him to her and worried him. An innocence like that could only shatter violently. And it had. War had changed her. He loved her nonetheless, loved the way she tried to fight her tiredness and sadness so earnestly. In the back of the car they would both pretend she wasn’t crying, because it was only in those moments beneath the roar of the car and his wordless acceptance of her sadness that she could unravel. Next to him she was safe to be incomplete.
Where he grew red raw with anger she silently wept for the lost. With his occassional help around the hospital he often had to stop himself sweeping across the room and holding her. To let her collapse. To let her sleep, renew herself. But he kept back. He trusted her to know herself, to know her limits, for independence was the grand blessing of life.
Things changed, though, when he saw one of the patients caress her leg.
In a second (he wasn’t sure— he couldn’t remember his movements, only the fire that seemed to propel him forward) he had smacked the man’s arms away and stood firmly between him and Sybil.
“How dare you.” Branson bit out.
“Steady on chap.” The patient said, his hands raised in defence. “I didn’t realise she was yours’.”
Branson’s voice only got louder. “She isn’t ‘anyone’s’, chap. She’s not a thing to be passed around.”
“Branson, please…” Sybil said, her hand on his arm. Usually that action alone would have made his world come into pin-point focus, but this rage made his whole body dense like iron so that her touch went unnoticed.
“No! What right does he think he has to behave like that?!”
“Now look here…!” The officer started. And he was just everything that was wrong with the world in Tom’s eyes. His face became a grotesque mask, in its features every cruelty he had suffered at the hand of the blasted stupid fucking Empire. All the faces from his childhood blurred together in the dull, anonymous features of some dull, anonymous patient. And he would tear him apart right now, right all those wrongs he had seen, everything—
Branson’s breathing became heavy and pained. Sybil’s grip on his arm tightened.
“I’m sorry.” Sybil said breathlessly, unsure as to who the apology was directed to. It settled on the room, and Branson felt reality come gradually back into focus.
“Wait a moment, isn’t this chap a servant?” The officer said, his voice rising in indignation. “I could have you sacked!”
“Oh, and you’d tell them you tried to grope the youngest daughter of this house?” Branson spat.
The officer paled. “I-I had no idea who you were, your Ladyship…”
“Why does that even matter? Why is it OK to do to anyone?”
“Branson, leave.” Sybil said firmly. He looked at her, hurt, and she lowered her voice. “I’ll speak to you later.”
///
“I’m not a damsel, you know.” She said, sweeping into the garage with all the confidence of someone who saw it as part of their home.
“I never said you were.” Branson replied.
“Well you acted like it!” She said, her chest heaving with anger. He rarely ever saw her like this: wild and raw, swept away by her feelings. It was exhilirating to see.
“So I was just supposed to let him get away with it?”
She crossed her arms, her jaw tightening. “What made you think I wasn’t going to deal with it?”
“You know what your problem is?” He said, slapping his newspaper down on the worktop. “You’ve forgotten how to be angry.”
“Oh don’t give me that bull.” She said. “You do realise what you did to me was much the same as he?”
His face darkened. “What?”
” ‘Virtue can only flourish among equals’” She said, her eyebrows raised. “You don’t consider me your equal, otherwise you would have allowed me the right to defend myself.”
He steeled himself. “‘You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else’. How can you do that when all you are right now is passive, Sybil?”
“Passive?” She scoffed. “I work. I fight every day to be recognised for it. And you call that ‘passive’?” She tilted her head. “Or do you as a man take for granted your indepence?”
“I’ve always supported women’s rights! And you for that matter!”
“I know and that’s why I’m so bloody angry!” She shouted, and with that he quickly realised his mistakes.
Would he ever stop making mistakes with her? Would he ever stop misreading her? Then the grim reality hit him that maybe this wasn’t meant to be, maybe she wasn’t supposed to love him, maybe they weren’t supposed to change the world together. Maybe she was supposed to be lost to him in a world of bejewelled dresses and the rich, smoky scent of money.
But in the cold damp of the garage she still stood there, watching him. She was always here. And he was unaware, but he was always there with her as well. They both occupied the silent, unseen spaces of each other’s worlds without realising it. Though unspoken, they still remained each others’.
“I’m sorry.” He croaked out. “I am.”
She shrinked a little, but knew she had to stand her ground.
“I just don’t want to see you hurt.” He said, before swallowing. “I love you and I can’t see you get hurt. I can’t.”
Her whole heart felt as if it was about to burst. Yes, she knew he loved her, but to actually hear the words made her blood rush. And the shape of the words were on her lips (“I love you too. But I’m scared. So scared. Tell me you’re scared too.”) but that was all they were for now: abstract projections, illusions, hypotheticals. The world was changing and she wasn’t sure where she would land when it had finished. For now she needed him to anchor her.
“If you truly love me…” She said quietly, taking small steps towards him, the distance between them alive with electricity. “Let me do what no other man would: let me live.”