Fortunes of War

by Olivia Manning

Angela laughed. ‘Both sides?’

  ‘Yep, both sides?’

  Harriet asked, ‘Where did you hear this?’

  ‘I’ve got m’sources. If you knew the financial shenanigans that went on before the war between Krupps, Chamberlain, the Vatican and a certain British bank, nothing would surprise you.’

  ‘Which British bank?’ Angela spoke as one with a knowledge of international finance and Jackman, sniffing and looking uneasily about, brought out the name of a bank which was new to Harriet. Angela made no comment and Jackman, having silenced the women, went on to describe the pre-war relationship between Allied and Axis arms manufacturers and banks, describing a corruption so complex that Harriet and Angela were lost in its machinations.

  Castlebar, who had heard all this many times before, sat with eyelids down, his chin sinking into his gullet as though about to fall asleep.

  Growing bored with Jackman’s rigmarole, Harriet looked towards the gate, feeling it was time for Guy to arrive and divert them. Jackman came to a stop at last and Castlebar’s loose, violet-coloured lips gradually trembled into speech. ‘B-b-bad news from all quarters these days. My wife’s pulling strings, thinks she can get back here.’

  Castlebar’s wife had gone on holiday to England and been trapped there by the outbreak of war. Harriet, surprised that any ordinary civilian might get passage to Egypt, asked, ‘How could you wangle that?’

  ‘Me wangle it? You don’t think I want her back?’

  ‘Then, how could she wangle it?’

  ‘If you knew my wife, you wouldn’t ask. The shortest known distance in the world is the distance between my wife and what she wants.’

  Angela’s amused gaze focussed on Castlebar as he spoke. He looked at her and their eyes held each other in serious regard for a long moment, then Angela laughed and said in a teasing tone, ‘So you don’t want your wife here! I wonder, is there some special reason? Another lady, perhaps?’

  Castlebar tittered and taking up the poised cigarette, lit it from the butt of its predecessor and propped up the one that would succeed it He started to speak but was hindered by a fit of coughing and Harriet said, ‘He has a whole library of other ladies.’

  Angela raised her brows, uncertain what was meant, then suddenly screamed with laughter. ‘I know, you buy those dreadful little books they sell in Clot Bey and the Esbekiya!’

  Grinning, Castlebar put his hand into the breast pocket of his limp, grimy linen jacket and pulled out the corner of a limp and grimy booklet. Before he could put it back again, Angela snatched it and began to look through it. He made a half-hearted attempt to retrieve it but left it with her, looking rather proud of his sensational possession.

  Angela, pushing her chair back, keeping the book out of reach, read the title: ‘The Golden Member — what have we here? The life story of some wealthy member of parliament? Hm, hm, hm . . .’ She turned the grey, coarse-textured pages, piecing the story together. ‘Dear me! The author claims that his was so be-u-u-u-tiful that his female admirers had a model of it made in pure gold and organized a ceremony in which several virgins deflowered themselves on this object. How interesting!’ Angela surveyed Castlebar, pretending wide-eyed innocence. ‘Do you think it is all true?’

  Jackman clicked his tongue, as bored by Castlebar’s sexual fantasies as Castlebar was by Jackman’s politics. Between them they had finished off the whisky and the wine and Jackman, interrupting Castlebar’s play with Angela, shouted to a safragi, ‘Encore garaffo.’

  The safragi, taking up the challenge, replied, ‘Mafeesh garaffo.’

  Jackman argued and the safragi, wandering happily over to him, made a gesture of finality. ‘Garaffo all finish. Not any more.’

  Jackman, not reflecting the good humour of this refusal, shouted, ‘You heard me, you gyppo bastard. Encore garaffo.’

  ‘What for you say “gyppo bastard”?’ the safragi asked with dignity. ‘Gyppo very good man. You go away. Party finish.’

  ‘And a bloody awful party it was!’

  Angela was talking behind her hand to Castlebar while he, enfeebled by laughter, tried to push The Golden Member back into his pocket. A taxi came through the gate and Harriet looked longingly towards it, but it was an empty taxi, come to take people way. She noticed how few remained. The party was indeed over. The safragi returned with the bill for the whisky. Jackman seemed too preoccupied to notice it but Castlebar made a vague move towards it. Angela, as was expected, lifted it up, saying, ‘My treat.’

  That settled, Jackman became more cheerful. ‘Let’s go on somewhere,’ he said then, as a finale to the Union party, he slapped his knee and began to sing to the tune of the Egyptian national anthem:

  King Farouk, King Farouk,

  Hang your bollocks on a hook . . .

  His voice was pitched high and he was directing it, with venomous intent, towards the Egyptian officers who still sat in reposeful silence under the green light.

  Oh, Farida’s feeling gay

  When Farouk has got his pay,

  But she’s not so fucking happy

  When she’s in the family way . . .

  As the verses went on, the officers seemed to awaken. One rose and went towards a table where three sat together and the four heads were bent in consultation.

  Castlebar said, apprehensively, ‘We’d better get out of here,’ but Jackman, drunk and defiant, sang louder, then his voice trailed weakly away. The officer who had risen, a large man, was crossing the lawn towards the English group. A sick expression came over Jackman’s face but the officer was friendly. When he reached the table he bowed, smiled at them all and began to speak in Arabic. Angela, the only one who understood him, was disconcerted by what she heard. ‘He says the officers wish to thank us for the homage paid to their king.’

  ‘Is he being ironical?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. He says he regrets that none of them can speak English.’

  The officer had more to say and Angela translated. ‘He says they have felt for some time that the Union should have a piano. They have decided to present you with one.’

  The officer, thanking Angela for her help, kissed her hand, then kissed Harriet’s hand and bowing to Jackman and Castlebar, departed across the grass.

  Castlebar, feeling the incident called for a speedy departure, said, ‘Oh, come on,’ but Harriet begged them to wait saying, ‘Guy always turns up at the last minute.’ But the club house was dark and the safragis were waiting to lock the gates. They had to go. Angela suggested they all go and see the belly-dancing at the Extase but Harriet, with no heart now for the Extase or anywhere else, asked to be dropped off in Garden City.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Angela said forcefully. ‘You’re not leaving me alone with these two. Anyway, it’s my first evening back in Cairo, so let’s enjoy ourselves. And you men, be sports — let me be host’

  This appeal to male chivalry stirred Castlebar who mumbled, ‘Can’t let you . . .’ but as Angela insisted he agreed without further protest. Angela would be permitted to act as host.

  Harriet said, ‘Guy must be home by now. I really ought to go back.’

  ‘Wouldn’t bank on it,’ said Jackman. ‘He’s probably out on the loose. You stick around with us. I bet we find him somewhere.’

  The Extase, one of the largest open-air night clubs, was in a garden beside the Nile. It was always crowded. Angela’s party had to wait in a queue composed chiefly of officers and their girls. As the safragi set up make-shift tables in any vacant corner they could find, the queue dwindled steadily. Moving towards the club centre, Harriet, made unreasonably expectant by Jackman’s bet that they would find Guy, looked over the tables. This was the last place in Cairo she would be likely to find Guy yet, not finding him, the whole crowded, noisy, busy garden was pervaded for her by a desolating emptiness.

  On the stage a man in flannels and striped blazer was imitating the sound of a car changing gear uphill. His imitation was exact and the audience, that would have o
bjected to the sound of a real car, gave him enthusiastic applause.

  The Extase served only champagne and some of the officers were hilariously drunk. The arc lights that lit the stage added to the summer heat. The audience seemed a compacted, sweating, shouting, restless, amorous mass of men and girls who, like Edwina, only wanted a good time. Harriet wondered how long she would have to stay.

  A safragi led Angela’s party to the furthest corner of the auditorium and there Harriet saw Guy. He was with Edwina. Harriet stood, cold with shock, and stared at them while Angela said, ‘Come on, Harriet, sit down.’ Harriet remained where she was, transfixed, and Angela caught hold of her arm.

  ‘My dear, is anything the matter? You look as though you’d seen a ghost.’

  Harriet sat down but had to look round again to be sure that Guy was Guy and not an apparition of the mind. She could not bear what she saw but it remained with her. Guy was leaning towards Edwina and her hand, which rested on the table, was covered by his hand. ‘I had too much faith in him,’ Harriet thought. She was determined not to look at them again but then it came to her: Perhaps it’s not Edwina! In spite of herself, she turned her head and saw Edwina’s hair falling as it always fell, over Edwina’s right eye. And that was that.

  Angela said, ‘Don’t you feel well?’

  ‘No, not very. I get these stomach upsets.’

  ‘We’ll go as soon as Calabri’s done her dance.’

  The dancer, Fawzi Calabri, was in no hurry to appear. As star of the cabaret, her act came last and she delayed it until the audience was in a frenzy of anticipation. She was announced and Harriet had to move her chair in order to see the stage. Doing so, she saw the table at which Guy and Edwina had been sitting. They were no longer there. The chairs were empty. The sight of them agitated her. She wanted to run off in search of Guy but could only stay and watch.

  Calabri, a plump, moon-faced beauty with flesh powdered to an inhuman whiteness, had come on to the stage. She advanced to the centre and stood there, arms lifted, hands above her head, clad in diamonds and a few gauzy, sparkling whirl-abouts, until the uproar died down. Then the diamonds began to throw off sparks of light, the gauze lifted and her abdomen moved. The movement began gently, a slight roll and swell that worked itself gradually into a strong muscular rotation so it seemed the structure of the stomach was going round in circles. The music increased with the pace while Calabri stared at her own belly as though it were an unattached object which she swirled like a lasso. Music and movement reached a convulsive pitch then began to slow until there was silence and the dancer was still.

  Amid the commotion that followed, Harriet whispered to Angela that she would leave by herself.

  ‘No, we’re all going.’

  A taxi was waiting outside the club. Harriet was driven to Garden City but Angela made no move to get out with her.

  ‘I feel I must see my poet safely home,’ Angela laughed at Castlebar who smiled complacently and put his arm round her.

  Jackman, pulling his nose and sniffing in gloomy disgust, said, ‘You can drop me at Munira while you’re about it.’

  Harriet could scarcely give thought to the fact, astonishing at some less anxious time, that Angela could be attracted by Castlebar. She only wanted an explanation from Guy and was relieved to find he was in the flat. Sitting up in bed, a book in his hand, he mildly inquired, ‘Where have you been? It’s after midnight.’

  ‘Where have you been? I waited for you till the Union closed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, but Edwina begged me to take her to the Extase.’

  ‘You went to the Extase, of all places? — when you’d promised to join me at the Union!’

  ‘Don’t be cross. You’ll understand when I tell you what happened. I was going to the Union but I came back to have a shower and change, and I found Edwina in a terrible state. She had been waiting for Peter Lisdoonvarna for over an hour. When she realized he did not mean to turn up, she collapsed. I found her lying on the sofa, crying her eyes out. So what could I do? I had to help her. She thought he had gone to the Extase . . . And, I may say, it was all your fault.’

  ‘How could it be my fault?’

  ‘You advised her to put up a show of indifference and go out with someone else. She did this and went with the new boy-friend to the Extase. The first thing she saw there was Peter enjoying himself hugely with another girl — some “Levantine floosie”, according to Edwina. She was convinced that Peter was at the Extase again with the same floosie and she was beside herself with jealousy. The only thing that would satisfy her was to go to the Extase and see for herself. I was really afraid she would do something desperate. I felt I had to go with her.’

  ‘Supposing Peter had been there, what would she have done?’

  ‘Well, I’m thankful to say he wasn’t. But you can see I had to comfort her a bit . . .’

  ‘You were comforting her more than a bit. I saw you. You were holding her hand.’

  Guy was jolted, but not for long. ‘I felt sorry for the poor kid.’

  ‘She’s not a kid. She’s the same age as I am. I went alone to the Union. She could have gone to the Extase by herself.’

  ‘Be reasonable, darling. The Extase and the Union are very different places. And you’re a married woman, you have status. She’s just a frightened kid.’

  ‘Frightened of what?’

  ‘Losing out, I suppose. She’s set her heart on this fellow, Lisdoonvarna, God knows why. Come on, darling, don’t look so black. Little monkey’s paws, come to bed . . .’ He tried to take her hand but Harriet, remembering Guy’s hold on Edwina’s hand, moved away. He tried to coax her to return to him but she remained on the other side of the room, and looked at the window where there was no tree to befriend her.

  The sense of chill and distance between them so bewildered Guy that he started to get out of bed. She said angrily, ‘Leave me alone,’ and he remained where he was, watching her as though by watching he could divine what was wrong with her. He found it difficult to accept that his own behaviour could be at fault. And if it were, he did not see how it could be changed. It was, as it always had been, rational, so, if she were troubled, then some agency beyond them — sickness, the summer heat, the distance from England — must be affecting her. For his part, he was reasonable, charitable, honest, hard-working, as generous as his means allowed, and he had been tolerant when she picked up with some young officer in Greece. What more could be expected of him? Yet, seeing her afresh, he realized how fragile she had become. She was thin by nature but now her loss of weight made her look ill. Worse than that, he felt about her the malaise of a deep-seated discontent. That she was unhappy concerned him, yet what could he do about it? He had more than enough to do as it was, and he tried to appeal to her good sense. ‘Darling, don’t be so grumpy!’

  She turned on him. ‘I am grumpy, and with reason. I’m sick of your solicitude for others — it’s just showing off. You don’t show off to me. I’m part of you, as you say, so I can put up with anything. You don’t come to the Union, as you promised, and where do I find you? I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was . . .it was incredible.’

  ‘The girl needed help.’

  ‘Everyone needs help. Except me, of course. I can go round alone. I can look after myself. Here I’m usually more ill than well, but that doesn’t worry you, does it?’

  ‘It does worry me. This place doesn’t agree with you. You’re too thin, you look peaky. I’ve noticed it I’ve been thinking about it,’ Guy said, thinking about it for the first time. ‘You know, darling, there’s a plan to send some of the women and children home. Why don’t you apply for a passage.’

  ‘Me? Go back without you?’ She was dumbfounded and, sinking down on to a chair, she stared at him in disbelief. ‘You want me to leave you?’

  Made uneasy by her expression, he looked away from her. ‘Of course I don’t, but you said yourself that you’re usually more ill than well. And you’re nervous.’

  ‘I’m n
o more nervous than anyone else. It’s a nervous time.’

  ‘That’s true. No one knows what will happen when the Germans get their reinforcements. That could be any day. You said yourself, they could arrive almost without warning. If we ended up in a prison camp, I really don’t think you’d survive.’

  ‘At least we’d be together.’

  ‘We wouldn’t be together. We’d be in different camps. We might even be in different countries. If you were in England, at least I’d know where you were. And you would have war work — that would take your mind off things. You’d be happier, and your health would pick up there. All those bugs just die in a northern climate. Now, darling, be sensible. Think about it.’

  ‘I don’t intend to think about it.’ She went to the chest of drawers that served as dressing-table and put cleansing cream on her face. ‘We came here together. When we leave, well leave together.’

  She was dilatory in preparing for bed, feeling pained and suspicious. He had never before suggested that she return to England to face life alone; why suggest it now? It came to her, with dismay, that he wished to clear the way for a possible pursuit of Edwina. Was it possible? Everything was possible. If the affair with Peter broke up as it very well might, Guy would be at hand, again the comforter and perhaps, in the end, more than comforter. She had seen many marriages fail in this place, and men whose wives were sent out of harm’s way were quick to find consolation.

  When she got into bed, Guy put his arms round her, imagining he could conciliate her with physical love, but her response was cool. The fact he could think of their separation, even for her own good, was not so easily forgotten.

  In spite of her resolution, the thought of England had come into her mind and she recalled the vision of England that had overwhelmed her once in a Cairo street. It returned in her memory, a scene of ploughed fields and elm trees with a wind smelling of the earth; she thought if she were there, she would be well again. Here she was not only unwell, but at risk from all the diseases known to mankind. She remembered how she had danced at the Turf Club with an officer who was feverish and complained of a headache, and who went away to be sick.