SHE KNEW FROM her map that Balham lay at the far end of the Common, in the direction the vicar was walking. It was not very far, and this fact alone made her reluctant to continue. She would arrive too soon. She had eaten nothing, she was thirsty, and her heel was throbbing and had glued itself to the back of her shoe. It was warm now, and she would be crossing a shadeless expanse of grass, broken by straight asphalt paths and public shelters. In the distance was a bandstand where men in dark blue uniforms were milling about. She thought of Fiona whose day off she had taken, and of their afternoon in St. James’s Park. It seemed a far-off, innocent time, but it was no more than ten days ago. Fiona would be doing the second bedpan round by now. Briony remained in the shade of the portico and thought about the little present she would buy her friend—something delicious to eat, a banana, oranges, Swiss chocolate. The porters knew how to get these things. She had heard them say that anything, everything, was available, if you had the right money. She watched the file of traffic moving round the Common, along her route, and she thought about food. Slabs of ham, poached eggs, the leg of a roast chicken, thick Irish stew, lemon meringue. A cup of tea. She became aware of the nervy, fidgeting music behind her the moment it ceased, and in the sudden new measure of silence, which seemed to confer freedom, she decided she must eat breakfast. There were no shops that she could see in the direction she had to walk, only dull mansion blocks of flats in deep orange brick.

Some minutes passed, and the organist came out holding his hat in one hand and a heavy set of keys in the other. She would have asked him the way to the nearest café, but he was a jittery-looking man at one with his music, who seemed determined to ignore her as he slammed the church door shut and stooped over to lock it. He rammed his hat on and hurried away.

Perhaps this was the first step in the undoing of her plans, but she was already walking back, retracing her steps, in the direction of Clapham High Street. She would have breakfast, and she would reconsider. Near the tube station she passed a stone drinking trough and could happily have sunk her face in it. She found a drab little place with smeared windows, and cigarette butts all over the floor, but the food could be no worse than what she was used to. She ordered tea, and three pieces of toast and margarine, and strawberry jam of palest pink. She heaped sugar into the tea, having diagnosed herself as suffering from hypoglycemia. The sweetness did not quite conceal a taste of disinfectant.

She drank a second cup, glad that it was lukewarm so she could gulp it down, then she made use of a reeking seatless lavatory across a cobbled courtyard behind the café. But there was no stench that could impress a trainee nurse. She wedged lavatory paper into the heel of her shoe. It would see her another mile or two. A handbasin with a single tap was bolted to a brick wall. There was a gray-veined lozenge of soap she preferred not to touch. When she ran the water, the waste fell straight out onto her shins. She dried them with her sleeves, and combed her hair, trying to imagine her face in the brickwork. However, she couldn’t reapply her lipstick without a mirror. She dabbed her face with a soaked handkerchief, and patted her cheeks to bring up the color. A decision had been made—without her, it seemed. This was an interview she was preparing for, the post of beloved younger sister.

She left the café, and as she walked along the Common she felt the distance widen between her and another self, no less real, who was walking back toward the hospital. Perhaps the Briony who was walking in the direction of Balham was the imagined or ghostly persona. This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.

The street she was looking for was three turnings past the tube station, itself another replica. The Edwardian terraces, net-curtained and seedy, ran straight for half a mile. 43 Dudley Villas was halfway down, with nothing to distinguish it from the others except for an old Ford 8, without wheels, supported on brick piles, which took up the whole of the front garden. If there was no one in, she could go away, telling herself she had tried. The doorbell did not work. She let the knocker fall twice and stood back. She heard a woman’s angry voice, then the slam of a door and the thud of footsteps. Briony took another pace back. It was not too late to retreat up the street. There was a fumbling with the catch and an irritable sigh, and the door was opened by a tall, sharp-faced woman in her thirties who was out of breath from some terrible exertion. She was in a fury. She had been interrupted in a row, and was unable to adjust her expression—the mouth open, the upper lip slightly curled—as she took Briony in.

“What do you want?”

“I’m looking for a Miss Cecilia Tallis.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she turned her head back, as though recoiling from an insult. She looked Briony up and down.

“You look like her.”

Bewildered, Briony simply stared at her.

The woman gave another sigh that was almost like a spitting sound, and went along the hallway to the foot of the stairs.

“Tallis!” she yelled. “Door!”

She came halfway back along the corridor to the entrance to her sitting room, flashed Briony a look of contempt, then disappeared, pulling the door violently behind her.

The house was silent. Briony’s view past the open front door was of a stretch of floral lino, and the first seven or eight stairs which were covered in deep red carpet. The brass rod on the third step was missing. Halfway along the hall was a semicircular table against the wall, and on it was a polished wooden stand, like a toast rack, for holding letters. It was empty. The lino extended past the stairs to a door with a frosted-glass window which probably opened onto the kitchen out the back. The wallpaper was floral too—a posy of three roses alternating with a snowflake design. From the threshold to the beginning of the stairs she counted fifteen roses, sixteen snowflakes. Inauspicious.

At last, she heard a door opening upstairs, possibly the one she had heard slammed when she had knocked. Then the creak of a stair, and feet wearing thick socks came into view, and a flash of bare skin, and a blue silk dressing gown that she recognized. Finally, Cecilia’s face tilting sideways as she leaned down to make out who was at the front door and spare herself the trouble of descending further, improperly dressed. It took her some moments to recognize her sister. She came down slowly another three steps.

“Oh my God.”

She sat down and folded her arms.

Briony remained standing with one foot still on the garden path, the other on the front step. A wireless in the landlady’s sitting room came on, and the laughter of an audience swelled as the valves warmed. There followed a comedian’s wheedling monologue, broken at last by applause, and a jolly band striking up. Briony took a step into the hallway.

She murmured, “I have to talk to you.”

Cecilia was about to get up, then changed her mind. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“You didn’t answer my letter, so I came.”

She drew her dressing gown around her, and patted its pocket, probably in the hope of a cigarette. She was much darker in complexion, and her hands too were brown. She had not found what she wanted, but for the moment she did not make to rise.

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 ............