by Evelyn Waugh
‘Then anyone can. He’ll be able to get a cab. They always stop for Americans.’
Lieutenant Padfield was still at work on his correspondence; he wrote rather laboriously; the pen did not come readily to him; in youth he had typed; in earliest manhood dictated. Ian sent him up to Piccadilly and, sure enough, he returned in a quarter of an hour with a taxi.
‘Glad to have you come with me,’ he said. ‘I thought you were not acquainted with Spruce.’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Survival is a very significant organ of opinion.’
‘Signifying what, Loot?’
‘The survival of values.’
‘You think I need special coaching in that subject?’
‘Pardon me.’
‘You think I should read this paper?’
‘You will find it very significant.’
It was nearly eight o’clock when they reached Cheyne Walk. Some of the party, including the neutral guests, had already sickened of Frankie’s cocktail and taken their leave.
‘The party’s really over,’ said one of the secretaries, not Frankie; she wore espadrilles and the hair through which she spoke was black. ‘I think Everard wants to go out.’
Lieutenant Padfield was engaged in over-paying the taxi; he still, after his long sojourn, found English currency confusing and the driver sought to confuse him further. On hearing these mumbled words he said: ‘My, is it that late? I ought to be in Ebury Street. If you don’t mind I’ll take the taxi on.’
Guy and Ian did not mind. The Lieutenant had fulfilled his manifest destiny in bringing them here.
Strengthened in her resolution by this defection the secretary, Coney by name, said: ‘I don’t believe there’s anything left to drink.’
‘I was promised champagne,’ said Guy.
‘Champagne,’ said Coney, taken aback, not knowing who he was, not knowing either of these uniformed figures looming out of the lightless mist, but knowing that Spruce had, in fact, a few bottles of that wine laid down. ‘I don’t know anything about champagne.’
‘Well, we’ll come up and see,’ said Ian.
Coney led them upstairs.
Though depleted the company was still numerous enough to provide a solid screen between the entrance and the far corner in which Ludovic was seated. For two minutes now he had been in enjoyment of what he had come for, the attention of his host.
‘The arrangement is haphazard or planned?’ Spruce was asking.
‘Planned.’
‘The plan is not immediately apparent. There are the more or less generalized aphorisms, there are the particular observations – which I thought, if I may say so, extremely acute and funny. I wondered: are they in any cases libellous? And besides these there seemed to me two poetic themes which occur again and again. There is the Drowned Sailor motif – an echo of the Waste Land perhaps? Had you Eliot consciously in mind?’
‘Not Eliot,’ said Ludovic. ‘I don’t think he was called Eliot.’
‘Very interesting. And then there was the Cave image. You must have read a lot of Freudian psychology.’
‘Not a lot. There was nothing psychological about the cave.’
‘Very interesting – a spontaneous liberation of the unconscious.’
At this moment Coney infiltrated the throng and stood beside them.
‘Everard, there are two men in uniform asking for champagne.’
‘Good heavens, not the police?’
‘One might be. He’s wearing an odd sort of blue uniform. The other’s an airman. I’ve never seen them before. They had an American with them but he ran away.’
‘How very odd. You haven’t given them champagne?’
‘Oh no, Everard.’
‘I’d better go and see who they are.’
At the door Ian had collided with the Smart Woman and kissed her warmly on each dusty cheek.
‘Drinks have run out here,’ she said, ‘and I am due at my Warden’s Post. Why don’t you two come there? It’s only round the corner and there’s always a bottle.’
Spruce greeted them.
‘I’m afraid we’re a little late. I brought Guy. You remember him?’
‘Yes, yes, I suppose so. Somewhere,’ said Spruce. ‘Everything is over here. I was just having a few words with a very interesting New Writer. We always particularly welcome contributions from service men. It’s part of our policy.’
The central knot of guests opened and revealed Ludovic, his appetite for appreciation whetted but far from satisfied, gazing resentfully towards Spruce’s back. ‘Ludovic,’ said Guy.
‘That is the man I was speaking of. You know him?’
‘He saved my life,’ said Guy. ‘How very odd.’
‘I’ve never had a chance to thank him.’
‘Well, do so now. But don’t take him away. I was in the middle of a fascinating conversation.’
‘I think I’ll go off with Per.’
‘Yes, do.’
The gap had closed again. Guy passed through and held out his hand to Ludovic who raised his oyster eyes with an expression of unmitigated horror. He took the hand limply and looked away.
‘Ludovic, surely you remember me?’
‘It is most unexpected.’
‘Hookforce. Crete.’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
‘I’ve always been hoping to run into you again. There’s so much to say. They told me you saved my life.’ Ludovic mutely raised his hand to the ribbon of the MM. It was as though he were beating his breast in penitence.
‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me.’
‘It’s the shock,’ said Ludovic, resuming his barrack-room speech, ‘not looking to find you here, not at Mr Spruce’s. You of all people, here of all places.’
Guy took the chair where Spruce had sat. ‘My memory’s awfully vague of those last days in Crete and in the boat.’
‘Best forgotten,’ said Ludovic. ‘Things happen that’re best forgotten.’
‘Oh, come. Aren’t you rather overdoing the modest hero? Besides I’m curious. What happened to Major Hound?’
‘I understand he was reported missing.’
‘Not a prisoner?’
‘Forgive me Mr – Captain Crouchback. I am not in Records.’
‘And the sapper who got the boat going. I was awfully ill – so was he – delirious.’
‘You were delirious too.’
‘Yes. Did you rescue the sapper too?’
‘I understand he was reported lost at sea.’
‘Look,’ said Guy, ‘are you doing anything for dinner?’
It was as though Banquo had turned host.
‘No,’ said Ludovic. ‘No,’ and without apology or a word of farewell to Guy or Spruce or Frankie, he made precipitately for the stairs, the front door and the sheltering blackout.
‘What on earth happened to him?’ asked Spruce. ‘He can’t have been drunk. What did you say to him?’
‘Nothing. I asked him about old times.’
‘You knew him well?’
‘Not exactly. We always thought him odd.’
‘He has talent,’ said Spruce. ‘Perhaps a hint of genius. It’s most annoying his disappearing like that. Well, the party’s over. Will you girls shoo the guests away and then clear up? I have to go.’
Guy spent the remaining hours of his fortieth birthday at Bellamy’s playing ‘slosh’. When he returned to his room at the Transit Camp his thoughts were less on the past than on the future.
Unheard in Bellamy’s the sirens sounded an alert at eleven o’clock and an ‘all clear’ before midnight.
Unheard too in Westminster Abbey where the Sword of Stalingrad stood unattended. The doors were locked, the lights all extinguished. Next day the queue would form again in the street and the act of homage would be renewed.
Ludovic was not successful in the Time and Tide literary competition. His sonnet was not even commended. He studied the winning entry:
… Here lies the s
word. Ah, but the work is rare,
Precious the symbol. Who has understood
How close the evil or how dread the good
Who scorns the vestures that the angels wear?
He could make no sense of it. Was the second ‘who’ a relative pronoun with ‘good’ as its antecedent? He compared his own lucid sonnet:
Stele of my past on which engravéd are
The pleadings of that long divorce of steel,
In which was stolen that directive star,
By which I sailed, expunged be. No spar,
No mast, no halyard, bowsprit, boom or keel
Survives my wreck …
Perhaps, he reflected, the lines were not strictly appropriate to the occasion. He had failed to reflect the popular mood. It was too personal for Time and Tide. He would send it to Survival.
BOOK TWO
Fin de Ligne
1
VIRGINIA Troy had not been in his house ten days before Ian Kilbannock began to ask: ‘When is she going?’
‘I don’t mind having her,’ said Kerstie. ‘She’s not costing us much.’
‘But she isn’t contributing anything.’
‘I couldn’t ask Virginia to do that. She was awfully decent to us when she was rich.’
‘That’s a long time ago. I’ve had Trimmer shipped to America. I just don’t understand why she has to stay here. The other girls used to pay their share.’
‘I might suggest it to her.’
‘As soon as you can.’
But when Virginia returned that evening she brought news which put other thoughts out of Kerstie’s head.
‘I’ve just been to my lawyers,’ she said. ‘They’ve got the copy of all Mr Troy’s divorce evidence. Who do you think collected it?’
‘Who?’
‘Three guesses.’
‘I can’t think of anyone.’
‘That disgusting Loot.’
‘It’s not possible.’
‘Apparently he’s a member of the firm who works for Mr Troy. He still does odd jobs for them in his spare time.’
‘After we’ve all been so kind to him! Are you going to give him away?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘People ought to be warned.’
‘It’s all our own fault for taking him up. He always gave me the creeps.’
‘A thing like this,’ said Kerstie, ‘destroys one’s faith in human nature.’
‘Oh, the Loot isn’t human.’
‘No, I suppose not really.’
‘He made a change from Trimmer.’
‘Would you say Trimmer was human?’ They fell back on this problem, which in one form or another had been fully debated between them for three years. ‘D’you miss him at all?’
‘Pure joy and relief. Every morning for the last four days I’ve woken up to the thought “Trimmer’s gone”.’
At length after an hour’s discussion Kerstie said: ‘I suppose you’ll be looking for somewhere else to live now.’
‘Not unless you want to get rid of me.’
‘Of course it isn’t that, darling, only Ian …’
But Virginia was not listening. Instead she interrupted with: ‘Have you got a family doctor?’
‘We always go to an old boy in Sloane Street called Puttock. He’s very good with the children.’
‘I’ve never had a doctor,’ said Virginia, ‘not one I could call my doctor. It comes of moving about so much and being so healthy. I’ve sometimes been to a little man in Newport to get him to sign for sleeping pills, and there was a rather beastly Englishman in Venice who patched me up that time I fell downstairs at the Palazzo Corombona. But mostly I’ve relied on chemists. There is a magician in Monte Carlo. You just go to him and say you have a pain and he gives you a cachet which stops it at once. I think perhaps I’ll go and see your man in Sloane Street.’
‘Not ill?’
‘No. I just feel I ought to have what Mr Troy calls a “check-up”’
‘There’s a most luxurious sick-bay in HOO HQ. Every sort of apparatus and nothing to pay. General Whale goes there for “sun-rays” every afternoon. The top man is called Sir Somebody Something – a great swell in peacetime.’
‘I think I’d prefer your man. Not expensive?’
‘A guinea a visit I think.’
‘I might afford that.’
‘Virginia, talking of money: you remember Brenda and used to pay rent when they lived here?’
‘Yes, indeed. It’s awfully sweet of you to take me in free.’
‘I adore having you. It’s only Ian; he was saying tonight he wondered if you wouldn’t feel more comfortable if you paid something…’
‘I couldn’t be more comfortable as I am, darling, and anyway I couldn’t possibly afford to. Talk him round, Kerstie. Explain to him that I’m broke.’
‘Oh, he knows that.’
‘Really broke. That’s what no one understands. I’d talk to Ian myself only I think you’d do it better.’
‘I’ll try…’
2
THE processes of army postings were not yet adapted to the speed of the Electronic Personnel Selector. It was a week before Guy received any notification that his services might be needed by anyone for any purpose. Then a letter appeared in his ‘In’ tray addressed to him by name. It contained a summons to present himself for an interview with an officer who described himself as ‘GI Liberation of Italy’. He was not surprised to learn that this man inhabited the same building as himself, and when he presented himself he met a nondescript lieutenant-colonel whom he had seen off and on in the corridors of the building; with whom indeed he had on occasions exchanged words at the bar of the canteen.
The Liberator gave no sign of recognition. Instead he said: ‘Entrate e s’accomode.’
The noises thus issuing from him were so strange that Guy stood momentarily disconcerted, not knowing in what tongue he was being addressed.
‘Come in and sit down,’ said the colonel in English. ‘I thought you were supposed to speak Italian.’
‘I do.’
Looks as though you needed a refresher. Say something in Italian.’
Guy said rapidly and with slightly exaggerated accent: ‘Sono più abituato al dialetto genovese, ma di solito posso capire e capire dapertutto in Italia fuori Sicilia.’
The colonel caught only the last word and asked desperately and fatuously: ‘Siciliano lei?’
‘Ah, no, no, no.’ Guy gave a lively impersonation of an Italian gesture of dissent. ‘Ho visitato Sicilia, poi ho abitato per un bel pezzo sulla costa ligure. Ho viaggiato in quasi ogni parte d’ltalia.’
The colonel resumed his native tongue. ‘That sounds all right. You wouldn’t be much use to us if you only talked Sicilian. You’ll be working the north, in Venetia probably.’
‘Li per me tutto andrà liscio,’ said Guy.
‘Yes,’ said the colonel, ‘yes, I see. Well let’s talk English. The work we have in mind is, of course, secret. As you probably know the advance in Italy is bogged down at the moment. We can’t expect much movement there till the spring. The Germans have taken over in force. Some of the wops seem to be on our side. Call themselves “partisani”, pretty left wing by the sound of them. Nothing wrong with that of course. Ask Sir Ralph Brompton. We shall be putting in various small parties to keep GHQ informed about what they’re up to and if possible arrange for drops of equipment in suitable areas. An intelligence officer and a signalman are the essentials of each group. You’ve done Commando training, I see. Did that include parachuting?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, you’d better take a course. No objection I suppose?
‘None whatever.’
‘You’re a bit old but you’ll be surprised at the ages of some of our chaps. You may not have to jump. We have various methods of getting our men in. Any experience of small boats?’
Guy thought of the little sailing-craft he had once kept at Santa Dulcina, of his gay excursion to Dakar
and the phantasmagoric crossing from Crete, and answered truthfully, ‘Yes sir.’
‘Good. That may come in useful. You will be hearing from us in due course. Meanwhile the whole thing is on the secret list. You belong at Bellamy’s, don’t you? A lot of loose talk gets reported from there. Keep quiet.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘A rivederci, eh?’
Guy saluted and left the office.
When he returned to the Transit Camp he found a telegram from his sister, Angela, announcing that his father had died suddenly and peacefully at Matchet.
3
ALL the railway stations in the kingdom displayed the challenge: IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY?
Guy and his brother-in-law caught the early, crowded train from Paddington on the morning of the funeral.
Guy had a black arm band attached to his tunic. Box-Bender wore a black tie with a subfusc suit of clothes and a bowler.
‘As you see, I’m not wearing a top hat,’ said Box-Bender. ‘Seems out of place these days. I don’t suppose there’ll be many people there. Peregrine went down the day before yesterday. He’ll have fixed everything up. Have you brought sandwiches?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t know where we’ll get lunch. Can’t expect the convent to do anything about us. I hope Peregrine and Angela have arranged something at the pub.’
It was barely light when they steamed out of the shuttered and patched station. The corridor was full of standing sailors travelling to Plymouth. The little bulbs over the seats had been disconnected. It was difficult to read the flimsy newspapers they carried.
‘I always had a great respect for your father,’ said Box-Bender. Then he fell asleep. Guy remained open-eyed throughout the three-hour journey to the junction at Taunton.
Uncle Peregrine had arranged for a special tram-like coach to be attached to the local train. Here were assembled Miss Vavasour, the priest from Matchet and the headmaster of the school of Our Lady of Victory. There were many others wearing mourning of various degrees of depth, whom Guy knew he should recognize, but could not. They greeted him with murmured words of condolence, and seeing it was necessary, reminded him of their names – Tresham, Bigod, Englefield, Arundell, Hornyold, Plessington, Jerningham, and Dacre – a muster of recusant names – all nearly or remotely cousins of his. Their journey was really necessary.
