‘Yes, but for how long?’
Angela laughed and said: ‘You know, Bill likes you, and he’s not averse to having two females in tow. Men are like that. Women, too, probably. I wouldn’t mind having an extra man around if he were amusing. But, for goodness’ sake, no more Major Listers. He was impossible. Bill and I may not be very exciting company but at least we don’t cry about our little bums.’
‘Angela darling, it is lovely to be back with you. My only fear is I’ll never be able to repay you.’
‘Oh yes, you will. I’ll chalk it up, every penny. But, please, no more about money. You’ve no idea how boring it is. It’s a bore to be without it, and a bore to have it and have to look after it. There should be a more satisfactory system of exchange.’
Angela stood up and now, with explanations over, Harriet supposed they were going to the Dog River, but no. Angela said, ‘I’d better see how Bill’s getting on’, and going upstairs did not come down again.
Harriet, giving up hope of her, returned to the garden to look at Beirut far below. Wondering how much it would cost to take a taxi down to the sea-front, she went and asked the hotel clerk who said: ‘There and back, a wait for you between? I fear, very much.’
‘More than five pounds.’
‘More, yes, I fear. The taxis are not here. They come up from Beirut and they must return. It is a bad mountain road so they charge more. And then this very nice hotel and drivers think, “All rich people,” and charge more. So it is.’
Harriet, contemplating the penalties of affluence, said: ‘I see. Thank you,’ and gave up the idea of going to Beirut on her own.
The days passed in monotonous inactivity. Angela might say: ‘Let’s go to Baalbek,’ or the Beirut bazaars, or the Dog River, but in the end, she and Castlebar would retire to their room and not reappear until suppertime. Harriet’s only diversion was to walk along the country road to a small village where there was nothing to do or see.
Still, here, on the seaward side of the mountain, the spring was advancing. The fruit trees were beginning to flower and small cyclamen were opening in the grass verges. The middays were so warm that Angela and Harriet could take their coffee in the garden. Castlebar, who did not take coffee, always went upstairs ‘to work’ and Angela would follow him there.
It had not occurred to Harriet that Castlebar was entertaining but now, escorted by what he called his ‘two birds’, he would tell stories and repeat conversations he had overheard and, at Angela’s request, repeat his limericks, all of them well known to Harriet. The first hour after dinner was the time for these performances. Later his stammer grew worse, his speech slurred and he began to yawn. When he was at his best, Angela kept him going, reminding him of this story and that.
‘Darling one, tell Harriet about the two officers at the Mohammed Ali Club.’
Castlebar snuffled and tittered, apparently reluctant until coaxed further: ‘Do tell it, darling, it’s my favourite story.’
‘W-w-well, it was like this. These two young officers were discussing the arrival of a Sikh regiment in Cairo: “Nuisance their being here. Means, if the city’s overrun, we’ll have to shoot our women.”
“‘Shoot our women, old chap, why’d we do that?”
“‘Done thing, old chap. Obligatory, y’know.’”
Delighted, Angela threw her arms round Castlebar: ‘You’d enjoy shooting me, wouldn’t you, you great, big, glorious brute?’
Every night, she insisted on at least one of Castlebar’s own limericks and she was as indignant as he was that the Cairo poetry magazine Personal Landscape had rejected them as too obscene for publication.
Harriet had discovered that beneath the mists of alcohol, Castlebar’s creativity had its own separate life. During their days at The Cedars, he was, he said, working on a poem.
‘When do you do it? In the afternoon?’
‘W-w-well, no. Angie and I tend to get drowsy in the afternoon.’ He took out of his pocket a page from a small, ruled notebook: ‘I have it here. Before lunch, when I’m shaving, I put it up on the shaving-mirror and look at it, and I alter a word here and there, and gradually it builds up. In a couple of weeks, it will be a poem.’
‘When it’s finished, what will you do with it?’
‘Just keep it, and one day I’ll have enough for a slim vol.’
As Harriet gazed at him in a wakening admiration, Castlebar patted her knee: ‘Don’t worry about money. You’ll be all right with us. Angie’s a great giver. She loves to feel she’s got us captive.’
‘And you don’t mind being a captive?’
‘I don’t mind anything so long as I can work at my poetry.’
He smiled and put the paper back in his pocket. She could see he had his own integrity and though he might be under Angela’s heel, a part of him remained aloof and intact.
She envied him his talent and decided that an occupation so intensive it made all else unimportant was very much what she needed herself. She wondered if she could write. During the empty afternoons, she read through the books in the writing-room bookcase. They had been left behind by visitors and were mostly forgotten French novels, stilted and dull, but there was a Tauchnitz edition of Romolo. Though she thought it laboured in style and lifeless in content, she read it for lack of anything else to do.
A week after her arrival, Harriet heard a familiar voice as she entered the dining-room. Dr Beltado, seated with Dr Jolly and Miss Dora, was declaiming on the possible fusion of all cultures Glancing up at Harriet as she passed, he looked puzzled as though wondering if he had seen her before. Dr Jolly did not notice her but she saw that Miss Dora had seen her and had no wish to see her.
As the doctor’s voice filled the room throughout dinner, Harriet questioned herself whether she dare intercept him before he got away again. Angela, seeing her abstracted, asked what was the matter and heard the whole story.
Swinging round, giving the trio a fierce stare, she asked at the top of her voice: ‘You mean that lot over there? You must make them pay up. If you don’t, I will.’
The other diners, alerted to an interesting situation, stared at Angela then at Beltado, and again at Angela and back to Beltado, until Beltado, his voice failing him, began to realize he was a centre of unwelcome attention.
‘I’ll just have a word with him,’ Angela said and, crossing to his table, she made her accusations in a voice that could be heard by all. He had bolted without paying the sum owed to an employee.
Beltado gave Harriet another look and recalled what this was all about. He began to bluster: ‘How was I to know what I owed her? She was told to put in her account . . .’ Bluster had no effect on Angela. Extravagant though she was, she would not tolerate misdealing, and she demanded that the money be paid there and then. She came back to Harriet with more than was due to her.
‘But I didn’t earn all that.’
‘Never mind.’ Angela closed Harriet’s fingers over the bundle of notes and, alight with victory, kissed her on the cheek: ‘You take it. It’s your money plus interest. Next time he’ll decide it’s cheaper to pay when the money is due.’
Fifteen
Simon was reaching the point of complete recovery. Guy, on his next visit to the hospital, found he had given up his crutch and was moving firmly on a stick. His walk was normal except, as he explained to Guy, his left foot tended to drag a little and his right toe had a trick of doubling under itself.
The trick came at unexpected moments but he had it under control. Whenever the toe seemed about to pitch him forward on to his face, he squared his shoulders and jerked them back and the toe was frustrated.
Simon laughed as though he had outwitted an enemy: ‘Neat that. Greening says the toe’s the last hurdle. He said: “Get your muscles into trim and your feet will serve you OK.” He told me to just go on working at it, so I’m working at it. I say to myself: “See that rope over there? You’ve to shin right to the top.’”
‘And can you do it?’
�
�I have done it. It’s a bit of a sweat but I make myself do it. I think Greening’s pretty pleased with me.’
‘You like him better these days?’
‘Oh, Greening’s all right.’
Simon was not only physically better, he had thrown off the shock to his system and had a new belief in himself.
‘I’ll be out of here as soon as the toe clears up. I don’t intend to hang around in the convalescent centre. Lots of chaps stay there for weeks, afraid of going back to the desert, but I’m not like that. I want to go back.’
Guy still hired the car and took Simon to the Gezira gardens or the sports fields, but the heat was becoming too oppressive for these afternoon outings and Simon no longer wanted to be treated as an invalid. As for Guy himself, he had other things he should be doing.
When he next arrived with the car, Simon said: ‘I want to go to the pyramids.’
Not much drawn to the pyramids, Guy said: ‘We could go to Mena and have a drink in the bar.’
Driving through the suburbs where flame trees held out plates of flowers the colour of tomato soup, Simon was reminded of his first day in Cairo and his first trip into the desert. That had been a month or so later than this, but already the wind blowing into the car had the sparking heat of mid-year and the chromium was too hot to touch. The climate had seemed to him intolerable yet during his year in Egypt, he had learnt to tolerate it.
The car stopped outside Mena House. When they stepped into the brazen sunlight, Guy’s one thought was to reach the air-conditioned bar but Simon, without pause or explanation, hurried away in the opposite direction. Guy followed him, calling, but he did not look round. Striding across the stone floor on which the pyramids were built, he stopped at a corner of the Great Pyramid where the stone showed white from the scraping of many feet. This was the usual place of ascent. Shielding his eyes with his hands, he looked up to the apex above which the sun was poised, blazing and scintillating in a sky white with heat.
When Guy caught him up, he said: ‘I’m going to climb it.’
‘Not now, surely?’
‘Yes, now.’ He turned to look at Guy with an exultant determination and Guy could only try and reason with him.
‘Simon, you know, this is foolhardy. If you slipped, you could undo all the work they’ve done on you.’
‘I won’t slip.’ He held out his stick: ‘If you’d just look after that . . .’
Guy took the stick and put it on the ground: ‘You don’t imagine I’d let you go alone?’
Simon laughed: ‘Good show. Let’s see who gets there first.’
The blocks that formed the pyramid were about three feet in height. Guy, with his face towards the stonework, put his hands on the first block and pulled himself up till he could kneel on top of it. He got to his feet and tackled the second block.
Simon shouted to him: ‘Look, this is how Harriet did it.’ Turning his back on the pyramid, he jumped his backside up on to the block, swung his legs after him, stood up and sat himself on the second block.
To Guy, watching, it seemed to be done with one movement and he remembered Harriet going up in the same way, wearing her black velvet evening-dress that had never been the same again.
‘It’s easy,’ Simon said and Guy agreed. It looked extraordinarily easy but he preferred to keep his eyes on Simon and laboured up in his own way, keeping immediately below his companion with some idea of acting as a safety net.
Simon, in high spirits, laughed with pleasure at the speed of his ascent and the noise brought out the ‘guides’ who bawled: ‘Not allowed. Must have guide,’ and shook their fists when they were ignored. But it was too hot for indignation and they soon retreated to whatever shelter they had found.
Half-way up, Simon’s pace slackened. Both men were soaked with sweat and Simon, pausing to get his breath, took off his shirt and spread it on the stone. Guy did the same thing and while they stood for a few minutes, he hoped Simon would now give up. Instead, he went on at a less furious pace. Guy, below him, could see the scar of his wound rising above the waistband of his slacks. It was red and the skin looked thin. Guy, fearing it might break open, wondered where he could go for help if help were needed. But Simon did not need help. He was well ahead of Guy and reaching the top where the apex stones had been removed, he passed out of sight. Guy, moving more quickly, followed and found him lying spreadeagled on his back, his arms over his eyes.
Throwing himself down beside him, Guy asked: ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine.’ He was too breathless to say much and lay for so long without moving that Guy became uneasy again. How was Simon to be transported down if he could not transport himself? Before this unease could become anxiety, Simon lifted his arms and seeing Guy’s worried expression, burst out laughing.
‘I did it.’
‘Yes. It was pretty impressive.’
‘I feel a bit dizzy, though.’
Guy felt dizzy, too. Looking around him at the dazzle of the desert, he wondered why anyone should want to come up here. There was little to see. In the distance, wavering and floating in the liquid heat, were the odd shapes of the Saccara Pyramids. Not much else. The two men might have been on a raft in a yellow sea; or rather, on a grill beneath an intense and dangerous flame.
He shook Simon by the shoulder: ‘Come on. If we don’t move out of this, we’ll both get sun-stroke.’
Without speaking, Simon rolled over and over till he reached the edge of the floor then he let himself down to the step below. Here an edge of shade was stretching out but not enough.
‘If you can manage it,’ Guy said, ‘we’d better get down to the hotel and have that drink.’
‘Oh, I can manage it.’ Standing up, Simon staggered slightly and made a face at Guy: ‘Muscles stiff. Not yet in tip-top form, but they soon will be.’ He sat on the edge of the block and dropped down to the one below: ‘Piece of cake, this. I wish Greening could see me.’ His shirt was dry again and at the bottom, he picked up his stick: ‘I don’t think I’ll need this much longer.’
‘What about the toe?’
‘The toe? Good Lord, I’d forgotten about it. That’s what Greening said. I’d only to forget I couldn’t do it.’
He talked on a note of triumphant assurance but for all that, he was glad enough to sink into a chair in the bar and take the glass Guy put into his hand: ‘Cheers. Just the job.’
There were half a dozen or so officers in the bar and Guy noticed that as Simon entered, leaning lightly on his stick, they had reacted very differently from the men at the swimming-pool. There, pallid and strained, he had been a dismal reminder of the reality of war. Here, his young face still flushed from the climb, he was the shining hero.
He and Guy sat for a while, silent and glad of rest, drinking their chilled beer, then Simon put his hand into his shirt pocket and took out a thin piece of card: ‘This came two days ago.’
It was one of the new air-mail letters, photographed and reduced, and Guy had to tilt his glasses in order to read the miniature handwriting:
Dear Simon, Sorry I can’t say ‘darling’ any more. I know you’ll be upset but it’s a long time since you went away and you didn’t write much, did you? I don’t suppose it was much fun in the desert but it isn’t much fun here, either. I’ve been lonely and what did you expect? Well, the long and the short of it is I’ve met someone else. Not getting letters from you, my thoughts turned to Another. I like him very much and he makes me happy and I want a divorce.
It wasn’t much of a marriage, was it?
Ever yours,
ANNE
P.S. Your mum tells me you were wounded. I’m sorry but you didn’t even let me know that.
Guy read it through twice before he said: ‘You didn’t tell me you were married.’
‘Yes. We rushed into it before I went to join the draft. We only had a week at the Russell Hotel before I left. She’s right, it wasn’t much of a marriage. She came to see me off at the station. All I remember is her standing
there crying and waiting for the train to take me away. I thought: “poor little thing” — that’s all: a girl crying and me looking at her out of the carriage window. I wouldn’t know her now if I passed her in the street.’
‘Have you a photograph?’
‘No. I had a snap but it fell out of my wallet somewhere in the desert. I don’t even know when it went. I just found one day it wasn’t there. Well, I don’t need to feel sorry for her any more. I’m glad she’s found someone who makes her happy. I only hope he’s a decent bloke.’
‘I wouldn’t take it too seriously. People get carried away in wartime. Probably, when you get back, you’ll find she’s waiting for you.’
‘Oh, no. It’s better as it is. She can have a divorce and welcome. It’s the best thing for both of us.’ Simon, with Edwina’s face glowing in his thoughts, smiled and pushed the letter back into his pocket.
‘Have you decided yet what you’ll do when the war’s over?’
‘I don’t know. What is there left to do?’
‘Everything. You’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of you. Even if you were accepted for the regular army, it would only be a short-term commission. You still have to face the future. I suppose, whatever happens, you’ll return to England?’
‘I suppose so, but I’m not going to stay any longer than I can help. It’s my Mum and Dad. Every letter I get from them, they say they’re just waiting for me to come back and tell them about Hugo. They say that’s all that’s keeping them alive. They say, “We know you’ll tell us everything,” as though there was something secret about his death. I’ve told them everything. Everything I know, that is. What else is there to tell? It’s all in the past now. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to be reminded of it. I feel I can’t go through it all again.’
‘But if it means so much to them . . .’
‘They should try to forget it. Instead, they keep on as though I’d be bringing him back with me.’
‘In a way you will be bringing him back, because you looked so much alike.’
Fortunes of War Page 54
