Fuel for the Flame

by Alec Waugh

  She woke suddenly, just as she had woken in that hospital, wondering where she was, aching in every limb; fighting her way back to consciousness; remembering the last seconds before the crash, hearing her stepfather’s gasp; asked, ‘Am I hurt? How badly am I hurt?’

  She moved her toes, her fingers; one by one. She had not lost a limb then. Ah, but did not soldiers who had lost their legs still feel pain in their feet in cold weather? Was she disfigured? Could she see a glass?

  Slowly she struggled back to consciousness. There was a bed beside her, an empty bed. No bed beyond. She turned. No bed on the other side: a dressing-table: the dark blue Pan Am nightcase.

  No, I’m not in a hospital, I’m in Karak. Relax, Shelagh Keable. Pull yourself together. The doctor told you this might happen, that you would have these nightmares. Not at first. It would take some little time for the fact to percolate into your subconsciousness, a month, two months, six months, you could not tell. ‘When I married,’ he told you, ‘I continued to dream of myself as a bachelor for five months.’ It takes time, he warned you.

  This was her first dream. It was so vivid that she could not realize that it was a dream. She was still living in the dream. If I hadn’t made that joke, she thought, if I hadn’t taken my eyes off the roadway. … She knew it was the fault of the driver coming in on the wrong side. Everyone was agreed on that. He did not sound his horn, till it was too late. He was hidden by a high bank, but even so if the car in front had not slowed down. … Yes, yes, I know all that; nobody said it was my fault. But if I hadn’t made that joke, if I hadn’t looked aside; I would have had an extra millionth of a second in which to think. I’d have done something different. There would have been an accident whatever happened. But my stepfather would be alive. How many motor accidents are there a week? What is the proportion of deaths to accidents? The betting against death in an accident such as that is ten thousand to one. I was scarcely hurt. The betting against a driver being as little hurt as I was is a thousand to one. It was an exceptional accident in every way. I was lucky. My stepfather was unlucky. It might have been worse for me, if I had had that extra particle of time in which to think. It might have been. Almost certainly it would have been. I might have been disfigured. My chances of a marriage ruined; my whole life spoilt. But my stepfather would be alive. My mother would not be a widow. It is my fault, whatever they say, it is my fault. If only I could have that moment back. If only I hadn’t made that joke. If I hadn’t turned aside.

  6

  By nine o’clock that night, Annetta was unable to stay awake, but she woke at three, rested, alert, refreshed. She did not know where she was. She had been dreaming of herself in London. The room was filled with moonlight. It was the first time she had slept under a mosquito net. She did not recognize it for what is was, the high white tent enshrouding her. She had lost all sense of time and of location. Then it came back, Rhya, Karak, the journey, Rhya, Karak. …

  She sat up, pushed aside the mosquito net, swung her feet on to the floor. She walked over to the window. The air was sweet and heavy with the scent of jasmine; fireflies flickered by the lake; the sky was cloudless; casuarinas patterned the lawn with shadows; frogs croaked contentedly. It was hard not to believe peace reigned here. She leant against the window sill, in a brooding reverie. Her left ankle began to itch and she rubbed it with the sole of her right foot; then her right ankle began to itch and she rubbed her left foot against it; at the same time she wanted to scratch her shoulders. The mosquitoes of Karak were small and soundless. They did not announce their presence with a buzz, but their sting was no less sharp. You could not lean against a window sill in a nightgown with impunity. She went back to bed.

  That morning she was taken to the Palace.

  ‘You needn’t be frightened,’ Rhya told her. ‘He’s very gentle, very kind.’

  ‘I won’t be frightened.’

  If she had become engaged to an Englishman of title, she would have been embarrassed at being taken to visit his feudal parents. Class was a reality for her in England, but the whole episode of her romance with Rhya belonged to fantasy. She was excited, but more interested than she was excited.

  The Palace was a mile from Princess Ladda’s house. They drove there by back roads that had the look of lanes, with ragged hedges and untidy fences and children tumbling in the grass. Even the major roads had a casual air. There were innumerable food stalls; trishaw drivers squatted on their haunches eating out of bowls with chopsticks; bearers, with heavily filled tins or baskets slung on bamboo sticks hurried by with a shuffling trot. Everyone looked very poor and ragged but nobody looked unhappy.

  ‘Is it at all the way that you expected?’ Rhya asked.

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be anything. I live in the moment. I like to be surprised. Oh, heavens, is that it?’

  This time she was surprised. The Palace was so bright that it seemed a fantasy: vivid reds and greens, set in a gilded background; a Walt Disney assemblage of towers, domes and spires against a clear blue sky under a heavy sun, and flanking it, as a bulwark of defence was the broad brown river with its surface craft of barges, launches and canoes: a whole life of its own. When she had seen photographs of the Palace she had said, ‘You can never tell from a coloured photograph. They make everything seem unreal.’ But in actuality the Palace was more unreal than any postcard. She could not believe that anyone had built anything so bright.

  ‘Who built it?’ she asked.

  ‘My great-great-grandfather.’

  ‘It glitters so. It looks as though it were made of china.’

  ‘That’s just what it is made of.’ He stopped his car, to show her. Porcelain plates of various sizes had been broken and fitted into day in the shape of flowers. ‘I’m ready to believe anything after this,’ she said.

  She was received in the small throne-room. It was high and narrow, set with lacquer screens. The throne was wide, highbacked, its cushioning covered with red damask. The King was wearing a loose light overdress, with gold figures embroidered on grey silk, long, loose, wide trousers and gold shoes with pointed, turned-up toes. That morning Annetta had practised the bow of reverence that would be expected of her as a future subject. She knelt down, sat on her heels, with her joined hands raised before her face, bent forward till her hands touched the ground. The King stretched out his hand. ‘Come here by me, my daughter.’

  His hand was dry and fleshless, but there was warmth in the pressure of his fingers. She was conscious of the smell of sandalwood. He looked very old. Yet he could not be all that old, if he was Rhya’s father. His voice was not an old man’s voice; it was tired and it was faint, but it had not that high-pitched neuter tone that you found in the very old.

  ‘I want you to tell me about yourself,’ he said, ‘about your home, your parents; it is many years since I saw England. I am told that England is very changed; that the England I knew exists no longer. I cannot believe that altogether. The life of the big country houses which I knew, is no doubt over. But the London clubs, the theatres, the racing, the cricket and the football, all those things that are so very English, remain, it seems to me. When I read your London Times and your Illustrated London News, I do not feel that the England I used to love has gone for ever. Tell me about your home. Do you have any servants? Do they live in? Who prepares the breakfast?’

  He asked her question after question, but she did not feel that she was being cross-examined. She did not feel that she was on trial; but that he was treating her very much as an ambassador presenting his credentials would be treated, so that she found herself talking easily, without embarrassment. Seated beside him on the throne, she did not so much feel that he was her future father-in-law, her future King, as a foreigner in a railway carriage who was asking her how the Welfare State was working out.

  He listened attentively, nodding his head, apparently in approval of what she told him.

  ‘This is most interesting. I am enlightened. I understand now why so many whose opinion I resp
ect have told me that the England I knew and loved exists no longer, while I—reading the English Press—have been convinced that it does. A foreign visitor cannot get a complete picture of a country. If he is visiting for professional reasons, he meets what are called his opposite numbers. He moves in their circle and it is a matter of chance whom he meets outside it. If he is simply a visitor, a tourist, he arrives with letters of introduction. If he is a person of consequence in his own country, those letters are addressed to people of the highest position. He probably meets people more important than he would in his own country. There are circles accessible to the visitor that are out of reach of the average citizens of that country. The various people who tell me now that England has changed, had gone to England between the wars bearing such letters of introduction: they had been invited to the big country houses, they had attended resplendent receptions in London, but they saw very little of the solid middle-class world on which the strength of a country depends so largely, the families who live in Wimbledon and Hampstead or in the provincial cities, Birmingham, Northampton, Bristol. That world has been, I suspect, confirmed and fortified by the events of the last fifteen years. I am very glad, my child, that it is to that world that you belong.’

  He paused. He looked at her very steadily: then smiled. He put out his hand and laid it over hers.

  ‘When I first learned that my son wanted to marry an English girl I was not happy, but now that I have seen you I am very happy. I believe that you are a woman who will be steadfast in adversity. The world that you belong to has become acclimatized to eventual victory through the exercise of steadfastness. Members of the former ruling class, of the old aristocracy have become acclimatized to defeat; they have renounced their privileges and adjusted themselves very sensibly to the demands of this day and age, but they live and think in terms of a rearguard action. It is not in that way that I want the wife of my son to live and think. He needs hope and steadfastness beside him.’

  He pressed her hand and then withdrew his own.

  ‘I have not asked you about your religion. I take it that you belong to the Church of England.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were confirmed at school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it an important experience for you or was it something that you took as a matter of course?’

  ‘Everyone seemed to be confirmed when they were about fifteen.’

  ‘Do you often take communion?’

  ‘Usually on the first Sunday of each month.’

  ‘And you go to church every Sunday?’

  ‘If nothing else turns up.’

  ‘It does not mean a great deal to you?’

  ‘I’ve never thought about it very much.’

  ‘Were you worried about my son being a Buddhist?’

  ‘My parents were, a little. They wanted me to be married in the Parish Church.’

  ‘But you yourself weren’t worried?’

  She shook her head. ‘Rhya told me not to be. It wasn’t like my becoming a Moslem, he explained. I didn’t have to stamp on the cross or renounce anything. There wasn’t even any question of conversion.’

  ‘Have you read anything about Buddhism?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Then you’ll have learnt that it is a very gentle faith. It is opposed to violence and pain. It aims at the liberation of the spirit, through release from struggle. It is pliant. It is not the same thing in China that it is in Ceylon. It is not the same thing here that it is in Thailand. It adjusts itself to the particular needs of its adherents. Has Rhya explained to you about the marriage ceremony?’

  ‘He told me that we knelt side by side at a kind of table and the guests poured water on our wrists.’

  ‘That happens, but that is not the ceremony. Strictly speaking there is no ceremony. The traditional Buddhist view is that marriage or rather relationships between the sexes are a cause of conflict, and therefore a hindrance to the attainment of Nirvana, so there is no wedding service in the Western or Moslem sense. Instead, on the morning of your wedding a priest blesses the house you are going to inhabit. He sprinkles lustral water over it. He also blesses the water that your guests will later sprinkle on your hands. The attendance of those guests in the afternoon was originally arranged so that every marriage should have its witnesses. It is important that there should be witnesses because marriage here has not the validity it has in Europe. It is not a sacrament of the Church. The priesthood does not recognize it. Polygamy was formerly accepted here and it still exists to the extent that divorce can be arranged very easily through mutual agreement. So it is necessary that each marriage should have its witnesses. In the case of the Crown Prince or of any member of the Royal Family those witnesses are not necessary. He had only to ask and to receive the blessing of his sovereign.’

  He paused and once again he placed his hand over hers.

  ‘As far as we are concerned, as far as Karak and the Karakis are concerned, the visit that you have paid me this morning is, my dear child, your real marriage ceremony.’

  Chapter Nine

  The racecourse contained four private boxes, in addition to the King’s and the British agent’s. Their owners regarded their entertainment there on race days as their chief contribution to the island’s gaiety. Charles Keable had invited twenty guests to lunch. He expected forty more to look in during the afternoon. They would be local notables, politicians, planters, heads of business houses. He discharged his obligations of hospitality towards Pearl employees at Kassaya. Only the Halletts had been invited. ‘After the big race I’ll take you round to the Chief,’ Charles told his daughter.

  The big race was fourth upon the list, at half past three. The G.M.‘s party went down into the paddock. Basil stood silent on its fringe. Up till now he had been gay, loquacious, the good guest. He could live in the moment as long as the big moment was there, two races off. But now the moment had arrived, he could pretend no longer. Twelve horses were in the race. One by one they filed out from their boxes. They all looked sleek and fast. He heard a couple on his right discussing the points of the second favourite, Marigold.

  ‘I never put on a bet till I’ve seen the parade,’ one of them was saying. Basil listened with impatience. How could they tell? Who were they that they could tell? Potiphar joined the circle. She was a chestnut, an exquisite assured creature; her jockey in his cerise and green-striped shirt carried his head high with pride. But so did all the other jockeys, and all the other horses looked exquisite and assured. How could you tell by looks? It was the morning gallops that mattered. It was the rumours following those gallops that had driven Potiphar’s price from the twelve to one at which he had backed her, to the five to four on at which she now stood as favourite. His eyes followed her beseechingly. Run well, he implored her.

  In twenty minutes she would be out there on the track. In twenty-five minutes it would all be over. In twenty-five minutes he would be saying to Julia, making it sound as casual as possible, ‘I’ve seen a car that might amuse you. We might run round afterwards and look at it.’ He pictured her astonishment when she looked at it. Her eyes, in the old storybook phrase, would pop out of her head. ‘But darling, that, how can we afford a car like that?’

  He would shrug and laugh. ‘Because you have the good fortune to have married a man who backs the favourite when it’s an outsider.’ … In twenty-five minutes … that, or else. …

  That, or he would be facing the problem of exercising, day by day, week by week, for a whole year, the petty personal economies that would enable him to make good the loss. A hundred pounds might not be an immense sum of money, in terms of the salary that Pearl paid him. If he had had to meet the cost of an operation, Julia and he could without too much difficulty have arranged a joint saving in their budget that would have soon repaired the deficit. But he could not tell Julia. He had promised her that he would never bet in a big way again. If he were to tell her what he had done there would be more domestic friction than he
cared to face. Better to bully himself with small economies. His life would be less unworth living. I must have been mad, he thought. Why did I do it?

  Shelagh was at his side. ‘Is that the horse you’ve backed?’ she asked.

  He laughed. ‘Heavens, no. You don’t see me putting money on a favourite. I like an outside chance. I come down to the paddock, make up my mind which I like the look of, and if it’s an outsider I put on a few pennies. I’ve taken rather a fancy to number nine, the black and red one. What’s her name?’

  ‘Sylvester.’

  ‘And what are the odds?’

  ‘Twenty-five to one, a rank outsider.’

  ‘Then that’s the girl for me. I’m going to put a dollar on her.’

  He went over to the Tote and laid his bet. His ticket was numbered twenty-seven. There was clearly no great demand for Sylvester. She’d pay off more highly at the Tote than from the bookies, in the million-to-one chance of her rampaging home first. He hesitated with the idea of backing her both ways and then dismissed it. What was the use? He was shooting in a higher league. He’d made his gesture.

  He was the first back in the box. ‘Yes,’ he said to the waiter, ‘I’ll have a brandy.’

  It was not the hour for a brandy but his nerves needed steadying. He drank it in two gulps. He walked to the edge of the box and stood leaning forward on his elbows. How familiar the scene was: the wide spread savannah with the mountains at the back, and the brown soil of the cricket pitches scattered over it. To the left and right there were the stands for members, beyond on either side the terraces for the proletariat; screaming and shouting, laughing, dancing, drowning the music of the band. A quarter of the island must be here today. How well he knew the mounting excitement as the moment for the big race approached. Yet he had the feeling that he had never been to a race meeting before. It was an altogether different race for him; so much, everything in fact, depended on its outcome. He looked at his watch. Twenty past three. In a quarter of an hour he would know. In a quarter of an hour … again that cold blast of terror struck him. How could he have been so mad? He closed his eyes and prayed. Please let me win, please let me win. If I win today I’ll never bet again. I promise, promise, promise. I’ll have learnt my lesson. … But she must win, he told himself, she must.