Guy took the letter to Dobson who was still in his bedroom. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’
Dobson, quick to defend authority, said: ‘There could be no absolute certainty about the ship’s fate till it failed to turn up at Cape Town.’
‘What about the survivors? Wouldn’t they be conclusive proof?’
‘No. We’ve had a longer report. The crewmen were lascars who scarcely knew what ship it was. The woman was too ill for weeks to tell anyone anything. Until there was proof, the rumours had to be treated as — well, rumours.’
‘I see.’ Guy put the letter into his pocket.
That morning, at breakfast, Edwina said she was thinking of marrying Tony Brody.
‘Good heavens,’ said Dobson; ‘not Tony Brody!’
‘Why not? He’s a major and a nice man.’
‘I should have thought you could do better than Brody.’
Edwina, sniffing behind her curtain of hair, said dismally: ‘There’s not much choice these days. The most exciting men have all gone to Tunisia and I don’t think they’re coming back.’
‘Even so. Be sensible and wait. Someone will come along.’
‘I have waited, perhaps too long. I’m not getting younger.’
Dobson observed her with a critical smile: ‘True. The bees aren’t buzzing around as they used to.’
‘Oh, Dobbie, really! How beastly you are!’ Edwina gave a sob and Dobson patted her hand.
‘There, there, pet, your Uncle Dobbie was joking. You’re still as beautiful as a dream and you don’t want to marry Brody.’
‘Oh, I might as well. If you can’t marry the man you want, does it matter who you marry?’
‘Why not stay peacefully unmarried, like me?’
‘Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working in a dreary office.’
While this conversation skirted his consciousness, Guy was thinking of Harriet missing, believed drowned. At an age when other girls were thinking of marriage, she was lying at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
The letter, though it told him nothing he did not already know, hung over him during his morning classes. It was as though a final shutter had come down on his memories of his wife and he realized that all this time some irrational, tenuous hope had lingered in his mind.
He thought of another ill-fated ship, the ship on which Aidan Pratt had served as a steward when he was a conscientious objector. On its way to Canada, with evacuees, it was torpedoed and Aidan had shared a life-boat packed with children in their night clothes. They had died off one by one from cold and thirst and when thrown overboard, the little bodies had floated after the boat because they were too light to sink. Harriet had weighed scarcely more than a teenage girl and Guy could imagine her body floating and following the boat as though afraid of being left alone on that immense sea.
Still disconsolate when he reached the hospital, he found Simon in a mood very different from his own. That morning, Simon had managed to walk a few yards without a crutch. He had walked awkwardly but he had done it — he had walked on his own.
‘You see what that means?’
Guy laughed, trying to lift his own spirits up to Simon’s level: ‘No wonder you’re so cheerful.’
Simon, lying in a deck-chair on the veranda of his small ward, was cheerful to the point of light-headedness. Delighted with himself, he said: ‘I was like this once before, when I first went into Plegics — but more so. In fact, I was pretty nearly bonkers and for no reason. But now I have a reason, haven’t I? I know I’m going to walk like a normal man. I told you about those dreams I get, when I’m running for miles over green fields? Well, one day, after the war, I’m going to do that! I’ll go into the country and run for miles, like a maniac.’
‘Just to show you’re as good as the rest of them? You could run in the desert just as well.’
‘No, it has to be over fields. I want that green grass, that green English grass.’
‘So it’s England now, not India or Cyprus?’
Simon laughed wildly. He was in a state where everything amused him but he was particularly pleased by a joke he had heard the previous evening. There had been a lecture in the main hall of the hospital, intended for patients who were near recovery. They were told they would leave the hospital in perfect health and the army had expected them to stay in perfect health. They were to avoid brothels and street women and to keep themselves clean and fit.
‘Just like a school pi-jaw,’ Simon said, ‘Except that the chap was funny. Oh, he was funny! What do you think he said at the end? He said: “Remember — flies spread disease. Keep yours shut!’”
Simon threw his head back in riotous enjoyment of this statement and Guy, smiling and frowning at the same time, thought: ‘What a boy he is! Little more than a schoolboy in spite of all he’s seen.’ Guy himself was not yet twenty-five but, suffering the after-effects of bereavement, he felt a whole generation or more older than Simon. It occurred to him, too, that Simon returning to normal vitality, was a different person from the disabled youth whom he had adopted as a charge. Simon, helpless and dependent, had had the appeal of a child or a young animal but now, growing into independence, he had qualities that set him apart from his protector. Guy remembered his own boredom at the Gezira pool while Simon felt only envy of an activity in which he could not join. Even now Simon, with his carefree ambition to run over green fields, was growing away from him and Guy, with the letter in his pocket, wondered what consolation he would find when Simon was gone altogether.
For some weeks now he had been avoiding public gatherings and the condolences of friends but that evening, feeling a need to talk to someone who had known Harriet, he went to the Anglo-Egyptian Union where he found Jake Jackman practising shots at the billiard table. They played a game of snooker then went into the club-room for drinks. Sitting with Jake at a table, Guy took out the letter and said casually: ‘This came this morning.’
Jackman, as he read, grunted his sympathy until coming to the name of Caroline Rutter, he burst out: ‘So that old crow Rutter’s still alive!’
‘Who is this Caroline Rutter?’
‘Why, the impertinent old bloody bitch who had the cheek to ask me why I wasn’t in uniform. To think of it! A nice-looking girl like Harriet dead and that old trout survives! She probably lived off her fat. The rich are like camels. They grow two stomachs and spend their time filling them so they’ve always got one to fall back on in case of emergencies.’
Jackman, drinking steadily, spent the evening dwelling on this fantasy and enlarging it until Castlebar’s wife came to the table. He was now in a rage against the perversity of chance and he looked at Mona Castlebar with hatred. Not disconcerted, she sat down beside Guy. She had sung in his troop’s entertainment and felt she had as good a right as anyone to his company. Having no quarrel with her, he bought her a drink.
She said: ‘I suppose you’ve heard nothing from Bill?’
‘I’m afraid, not a word.’
‘Neither have I, and I haven’t had a penny from him since he went. He neither knows nor cares how I’m managing.’
Jackman asked with gleeful malice: ‘How are you managing?’
‘That’s my business.’
Both men knew that the university was allowing Mona to draw Castlebar’s salary so Guy did not speak but Jackman, who had been eyeing her breasts and legs as though unable to credit their bulk, said: ‘You’re not starving, that’s obvious.’
Mona, her glass empty, was tilting it about in her hand as though inviting a refill. Jackman said: ‘I’ll buy you a drink if you buy me one.’
‘I’m not buying you anything. You’ve had more than enough as it is.’
‘Oh!’ Jackman straightened himself, his eyes glinting for a fight: ‘No wonder Bill went off with the first woman who asked him. He always said you were a mean-natured lout.’
‘He said you were a scrounging layabout.’
‘That’s good, coming from Lady Hooper’s fancy man.
’
Guy said: ‘Shut up, both of you,’ and Jackman, grumbling to himself, looked around as though seeking better company. Seeing Major Cookson at another table, he said: ‘If that cow’s staying, I’m going.’
Guy felt he, too, had had enough of Mona. As a taxi came in at the Union gates, he said he had to go home and correct students’ essays.
Taking the chance, Mona rose with him: ‘As you’re going to Garden City, you can drop me off on the way.’
So it happened Guy missed an event that was long to be a subject of gossip in Cairo. Or, rather, he did not miss it, for had he remained it would never have occurred.
What Jake Jackman did after joining Major Cookson was recounted by Cookson whenever he found himself an audience.
Cookson had not been alone at his table. He had with him his two cronies: Tootsie and the ex-archaeologist Humphrey Taupin. Shouting so all could hear, Jackson told this group that he would not spend another minute with that ‘grabby monstrosity’ Mona Castlebar and continued to vilify her till she and Guy were gone. Then, curving forward in his chair, his right hand pulling at his nose, his left hanging between his knees, he subsided into morose silence. Cookson, who was spending Taupin’s money, asked what Jake would drink.
‘Whisky.’
Cookson called on Taupin to replenish funds but Taupin said he had nothing left. Jackman losing patience, called a safragi and ordered a double whisky: ‘Put it down to Professor Pringle’s account.’
‘Not here Ploffesor Plingle.’
‘He’s coming back. And bring another for him. Put them both down to his account.’
Still pervaded by grievances, Jackman drank both whiskies rapidly and they brought him to the point of action. Leaning confidingly towards Cookson, he said: ‘You know that Mrs Rutter who lives down the road?’
‘I don’t think I do.’
‘She owns a swell place. Big house and garden, crowds of wogs to wait on her. Generous old girl, keeps open house. Told me to drop in for a drink any time. “Bring your friends,” she said, “I’m always ready for a booze up.’”
‘Really!’ Major Cookson’s grey, peaked face lit with interest. ‘She sounds a charming woman.’
‘Charming? She’s charming, all right. Like to come?’
‘What, now? Oh, I don’t think I can leave my friends.’
‘All come, why not?’ Jackman slapped the table to emphasize his magnanimity and jumped to his feet: ‘It’s no distance. We can walk there in half a minute.’
Cookson and Tootsie, unusually animated, got to their feet but Taupin was unable to move. He lay entranced, sliding out of his chair, eyes shut, a smile on his crumpled, curd-white face.
‘Leave him,’ Jackman said and walked off. After a moment’s uncertainty, Tootsie and Cookson followed.
The house was, as Jake had said, no distance away. It was one of the privileged mansions of Gezira that shared the great central lawn with the Union, the Officers’ Club and the Sporting Club. It stood dark amid the clouding darkness of tall trees and Cookson, seeing no light in any windows, said doubtfully: ‘I don’t think the lady’s at home.’
‘She’s there all right. She’s always home. Probably in the back parlour. Come on.’ Jake led them through the cool, jasmine-scented garden to the front door where he gripped a large lion-headed knocker and hammered violently on its plate. If the noise roused no one else, it troubled Cookson who said: ‘Oh dear, do you really think we should?’
They all peered through the coloured glass of the front door and saw the outline of a staircase curving up from a spacious hall. Jake hammered again and at last a light was switched on at the top of the stair. A white-clad figure began to make an uncertain descent.
‘I’m afraid we’ve got her out of bed,’ Cookson whispered.
‘Nonsense. She’s up till all hours.’
The figure, reaching the hall, paused half-way to the door and a nervous female voice called out: ‘Who is it? What do you want?’
‘We’re friends. Open up.’
‘If you want Mrs Rutter, she’s not here. You can leave a message at the servants’ quarters — they’re at the bottom of the garden.’
Losing patience, Jackman bawled: ‘I don’t want the bloody servants. Open the door.’
‘No. I’m just looking after things while she’s away.’ The girl began to back towards the stairs and Jackman became more persuasive:
‘Look, it’s important. I’ve something to deliver to Mrs Rutter. I’ll leave it with you.’
The girl returned and opening the door a couple of inches, asked: ‘What is it?’
The two inches allowed Jackman to force his foot in, then, using his shoulder, he flung the door open, sending the girl staggering back. Jackman was inside.
The destruction, Cookson said, began there and then. A six-foot-high Chinese ornament stood in the hall. Jackman overturned it with the decisive competence of a cinema stuntman and it crashed and splintered on the stone floor. He then marched into the drawing-room (‘A treasure house’ according to Cookson) and here he went to work as though carrying out a plan that had been burning in him for months.
Cookson and Tootsie had followed him, making weak protests, while the girl sobbed and asked: ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?’ Getting no reply, she tried to reach the telephone but Jake flung her away and then pulled the wire from the wall.
‘Then,’ said Cookson, ‘he just went on smashing the place up.’
When everything breakable had been broken, he took a pair of cutting-out scissors the girl had been using and tried to cut up the velvet curtains. The scissors were not strong enough and, said Cookson: ‘Raging around, he found a diplomat’s sword, a valuable piece, the hilt and sheath covered with brilliants, and pulling it out, he slashed the curtains, the upholstery and the furniture. Fine Venetian furniture, too. I kept saying: “For God’s sake, stop it, Jake,” but it was like trying to stop a tornado. For some reason the girl was more frightened by the sword than the general destruction. She started to scream for help and ran out of the house, but you know what Gezira’s like at that time of night! There should have been a boab on duty but he’d cleared off somewhere. And even if she’d found a policeman, he’d simply have taken to his heels at the idea of tackling a lunatic.’
The girl reached the Anglo-Egyptian Union. The gates were shut but the safragis were still inside. She persuaded the head safragi to telephone the British Embassy and so, eventually, a posse of embassy servants arrived in a car and took charge of Jackman who by that time had fallen asleep, exhausted by his own activity.
Guy asked Dobson: ‘Is it true Jackman’s a prisoner at the Embassy?’
‘Not any longer.’
‘Then where is he?’
‘At the moment in a military aircraft. If you must know, but keep it under your hat, he’s been sent to Bizerta HQ for questioning.’
‘To Bizerta HQ on a military aircraft! Why should the military concern themselves with Jackman? You don’t mean he really was doing undercover work?’
‘My dear fellow,’ said Dobson, ‘Who knows? Anybody could be doing anything in times like these.’
Twelve
During the three weeks that Harriet had spent working for Dr Beltado, Halal had come to the pension five times. These were social visits. He would arrive just as supper was ending and bowing to the doctor and the two women, would say: ‘I hope I see you well!’
Dr Beltado always responded with a weary effort at good-fellowship, saying: ‘Hi, there, Halal, how’s tricks?’ or, ‘How’s the world treating you?’ and push forward a chair: ‘Take the weight off your feet, Halal.’
Protesting that he had no wish to intrude, no wish to impose himself, Halal would sit down and Miss Dora would be sent to order coffee for him. While Beltado went on talking, Halal would give Harriet furtive glances, transmitting the fact that there he still was, patiently waiting, in case she had need of him.
Now, if she did not need Halal himself,
she needed help of some sort. She was nearly penniless and, walking up and down the souk, she longed for circumstance to befriend her. She loitered at each stall, with the crowd pushing about her, and when she came to the Roman arcade, she turned and walked all the way back again. No one took much notice of her now. She had become a familiar figure, an English eccentric with endless time and no money to spend.
Three days after Beltado’s departure, when she was nearing desperation, Halal came to the pension. She had finished breakfast and was wondering what to do with herself, when he edged round the dining-room door and without approaching further, began at once to explain and excuse his presence. Jamil had heard of Beltado’s departure and had seen her walking in the souk, apparently with nothing to do.
‘I asked myself “Could Mrs Pringle be bored? Would she care to look over the silk factory?’”
‘That would be nice.’ Harriet’s manner was so subdued that Halal crossed to her, saying with concern: ‘I hope, Mrs Pringle, you are not ill.’
‘Sit down, Halal. No, I’m not ill, but I’m very worried. Have you any idea where Dr Beltado has gone?’
‘I know nothing, but I see all is not well with you. Please, if I can help, what can I do?’
‘I’d be glad of anyone’s help but I don’t know what you can do. Dr Beltado went without paying me for the work I did.’
‘No?’ Aghast, Halal declared in fierce tones: ‘Such a thing is not heard of in our world.’
‘You mean the Arab world? But Beltado isn’t an Arab. Madame Vigo thinks he just forgot.’
‘To forget one who has worked for three weeks! It is not possible.’ Frowning, he considered the matter for some moments then said: ‘This should be told to Jamil. He will be in his café at this time, discussing business. May I take you to see him?’
‘Would it do any good?’
‘Perhaps. He has known Dr Beltado longer than I have. He may know where to find him.’
Fortunes of War Page 51
