by Alec Waugh
He spoke slowly, oratorically. Seated there with his shaven head and in his saffron robe, he was both infinitely close and infinitely remote. Her numbness left her. Its nature was now clear to her. The incident by the repair shop had severed the umbilical cord binding her to her former life. She had been in a daze between two worlds, awaiting confirmation in the new one. It was to Rhya and her future, not to her family and past, that she had turned in that decisive moment. She knew now where she belonged.
Chapter Nineteen
On the following Sunday, Basil and Julia drove out for a picnic. ‘Let’s have one day together, just ourselves,’ he said.
On the previous afternoon the Indian would have received his message. Early next week he would receive the answer. He had tried to reassure himself. What could the Indian do? He had been imprudent, silly perhaps, but he had done nothing wrong, he could not get into trouble. So he argued, but he was apprehensive. He had the sense of standing on a crumbling ledge; he sought for similes. He remembered as a child watching the cutting of the corn in August, the reapers traversing the field in narrowing circles. The rabbits were driven to the centre. Boys were waiting on the edge with sticks and stones; dogs too were waiting. Occasionally a rabbit would break into the open and race for safety; but always the boys got it, the stones and the sticks and the unleashed dogs. The rabbits cowering in the centre were momentarily safe, but every second the scythes were coming nearer; sooner or later they would have to risk that break into the open. Was that how he was now in the calm centre of the corn, with the scythes growing nearer every second? For the moment he was safe, but in Kuala Prang that Indian was preparing his reply. At any rate they had this day.
It could not have been a lovelier day. The sky was flecked with clouds that veiled the heavy sun’s heat; the trade wind from the east was blowing. They drove northward along the main canal: the rice-fields on either side were bright with growing plants; water buffaloes wallowed in the mud, their antlered snouts protruding above the surface; some of them had small boys straddling on their heads; an elementary type of windmill, a bare cross of wood on a seven-foot stake slowly revolved, drawing up water from the canal. The houses were built on stilts. Before each house was a large fishing net, operated on the system of a see-saw. The net was supported by a wide bamboo cross; at the other end of the net was a ladder: when the ladder was released, the net sank into the canal. After a period of immersion, a boy walked down the ladder, lifting the net with his weight. The small fish flashed and glittered in the sunlight as they cavorted in the bottom of the net. Long low canoes were propelled along the canal by a man or woman standing in the bows.
Basil swung his car away from the canal towards the beach. A man waved at them and they drew up. He had a bunch of land crabs for sale, and Basil bought it.
In a clearing of the bush, boys were playing at cricket with dried palm fronds cut into bats, and a small grapefruit as a ball. ‘They probably get just as much out of it as the big boys do at Lord’s,’ he said.
‘Looking at us they think, He’s getting as much of a kick out of her as Aly Khan got out of Rita Hay worth.’
He put his arm round her shoulder. ‘You’re much more glamorous than Rita Hay worth.’
‘Please go on thinking that.’
They lunched on a lonely stretch of beach. They had brought out a Thermos of rum punch. They swam and came back to their picnic basket.
‘Back in England,’ he asked, ‘did you ever go punting on the river?’
‘Never.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t. I’d have felt jealous if you had.’
‘You turned up before I’d had time to do anything. I wasn’t even a débutante.’
‘Don’t you feel cheated sometimes?’
‘Cheated?’
‘Perhaps I read too many novels where girls play around, then say to the man they marry, “I’m glad I’ve had a bachelor girl’s life. Now I shan’t feel inquisitive.”’
‘Darling, that’s defence mechanism. There are a terrible lot of girls who’d give their souls to be able to say, “The first man who really made love to me is the man I married,” the way that I can.’
After lunch they drowsed. He rested against a palm tree, his face towards the sea. Julia was curled up on a rug, the picnic basket as a pillow. It was cool and tranquil: he had never felt more at peace.
Next morning there lay on his desk an envelope addressed in the familiar handwriting. He turned it over between his hands, afraid to cut the flap. He pulled open a drawer and tossed the letter to the back of it. He would look at it after lunch. But the knowledge that the letter was there broke his concentration. Hell, he thought. I’ve got to know.
He began to set out the pieces. He had arranged the half of them when the door was opened. Harry Pawling raised his eyebrows. ‘We don’t seem very busy this morning, do we?’
Basil laughed. ‘It’s just because I am so busy that I’ve set out this problem. It relieves tension. I look at this board for five minutes, then I come back to my work with a fresh mind. Colonel Forrester does exactly the same thing.’
‘He does, does he? Well, it’s about the Colonel that I want to speak to you. There’s a V.I.P. coming out next week. You’ll be showing him round. Forrester wants you to remember everything he says, everything he asks you. It’s most important, so the Colonel says.’
‘I’ll be most attentive.’
‘Fine.’ Harry looked at the chess-board. ‘Relieving tension. I wonder if a schoolmaster would accept that alibi for a boy’s playing chess when he should be doing prep.’
Another black against me, Basil thought. He shrugged. He could not be bothered about that now. He had too much else to worry him. He set out the remaining pieces. He took out his key. ‘Supermarket Wednesday ten.’ He swept the pieces back into the box. He stared at the written message. I won’t go, he thought. Nobody can make me. I won’t go. But ten o’clock Wednesday found him at the supermarket.
He was nervous, angry; in a mood to bluster. ‘Now listen, I’m through with this,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to get this straight. You must understand …’
The Indian raised his hand. ‘Please, Mr. Hallett, please. It’s you who must get this straight. It is no good your saying something is impossible. There is only one thing that is impossible, that you should cease to co-operate with us; you have got in too far. This is a dangerous game.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I know that you do not understand, Mr. Hallett; there are some things that it is not necessary for you to understand. There is only one thing you must understand, that my friends are very powerful and that they will not permit you to cease to be co-operative.’
‘Who are your friends?’
‘They are powerful and they are ruthless. That is all you need to know.’
‘They may be powerful, but what can they do to me?’
‘A great deal, Mr. Hallett. You have signed three cheques. Those three cheques are receipts. They represent rewards for services that have been rendered. Those cheques also contain another signature, that of the man who issued the cheques. If those cheques were in the hands of, let us say, Colonel Forrester, the Colonel would know that you had received those cheques in return for certain services. He would place a very unfortunate interpretation on your having received that money, from that source. It would be the ruin of your career.’
‘But …’
Again the Indian raised his hand.
‘Mr. Hallett, it is not very desirable that we should be seen together here. It is, in fact, most imprudent. But it is most important that you should realize once and for all the position in which you stand. There must be no more misunderstandings. I will provide a parallel situation, so that you may realize what your position is. Let us take the example of a spy: I am not saying you are a spy. I am taking the example of a spy. It is the year 1936. The German Foreign Office wants to recruit a spy who will operate in London. What does it do? There are many courses open, bu
t one of the best is to find a young Englishman in Germany, a student, let us say, or a tourist who is in some financial difficulty. The German recruiting agent solves those difficulties. He makes light of them. “I have done something for you here in Germany,” he says. “You will do something for me in London. There are many things that you can do for me.” So the young Englishman goes back to England content and satisfied.
‘Now this is what I want you to notice, Mr. Hallett. The recruiting agent always selects a man who has some weakness of character, some Achilles heel; a man who takes drugs perhaps, a man who has peculiar sexual tastes, a man who has something to conceal. The German may make it easy for him to indulge those practices. A man on a holiday is often ready to do abroad things that he would not do in his own country. The German will have material for blackmail. But sometimes the weakness may be less dramatic. It may be simply a man who is extravagant, a man who gambles upon horses, or a man who will find it difficult to repay a loan. The recruiting agent would not be interested in a wholesome, practical, honourable man; such men are invulnerable. Let us see what happens when this Englishman is back. Sooner or later he will receive a letter from the German who befriended him. A friend of his, the letter says, will shortly be in London. He may be short of money: there are currency restrictions for German tourists. Perhaps he could repay the loan. Now that is the last thing that the Englishman wants to do. He is in debt. He explains this to the German. The German shrugs his shoulders. That is too bad, but there are other possibilities of repayment; the friend in Germany is anxious to have certain information for a book that he is writing, or it may be he wants some photographs for his collection. The German has, of course, found out the kind of information that his English friend can give him. There are very few men who have not access to some information that would be of value to a foreign power. It might even be that the German in 1936 would have valued a correspondent who could tell him from month to month how Englishmen were feeling on this issue and on that, and I may here mention that if the Germans had had more such correspondents in England in 1936 they would not have made the mistakes that they did in 1939. I am going into this matter at great length, Mr. Hallett, because I want you to get your position clear; because you must realize that there is a resemblance between you and the young Englishman who, in return for money, provided a foreigner with valuable information. In each case you will notice that the Englishman has slipped into this position in ignorance, in innocence; stupidly no doubt, but without any feeling that he is being a traitor. He does not realize that till it is too late.’
‘But I don’t see …’ Basil interrupted.
‘Please, Mr. Hallett, please, I have not finished yet. I want to explain to you why it is too late; why it is impossible for you to say “Impossible”. Where is your danger, you will ask? I will explain. You have heard possibly of the double agent, a man working for both sides, paid by both sides, but actually serving the interests of one. Let us say that the British have an Alsatian who is in their pay but is primarily and, unknown to them, working for the Germans. He is highly useful to the Germans. He can tell them what kinds of information the British need. But at the same time he has to give the British some solid information. He must be able to put them off their guard; and what better information than the means to convict a spy; so that even if this Englishman who was recruited in Germany proves unco-operative he has his uses. The double agent can unmask him to the British, thereby enhancing his own prestige and confirming the British faith in him. I can assure you that a spy does not lose his value by becoming lazy. There is still a role that he can fill. That is how spies are kept up to the mark. They are told that unless they work hard they are more useful as a double-agent’s pawn. Usually they prefer to work hard, even though they receive very small remuneration. Once a spy is in the hands of an employer, he is only too delighted to do what he is told, so as to avoid a worse fate. And that, my dear, dear Mr. Hallett, is the position in which you find yourself. So I trust you will supply me as soon as possible with the information for which I asked.’
2
Harry Pawling turned the second sheet of the Pearl’s monthly news bulletin.
‘Everyone will be glad to learn’, he read, ‘that Mrs. Pawling was able to arrive in England in time for her son’s operation. What a difference has been effected in the life of Pearl employees by modern facilities of communication and transportation. In the old days of the East India Company …’
Pawling let the report fall forward on his desk. He closed his eyes and began soundlessly to recite his big speech in Rose Without a Thorn.
‘Women and wine men say. I abominate the vulgarians who class women and drink together. Women and flowers, women and music— that’s the right way to think of them.’
It was the best part that he had ever had, the part into which he could enter most completely. He felt he was King Henry, and with Iris looking at him, he could understand exactly how the King had felt. Katheryn had loved him; loved him and been false to him; it was not for his wealth, for his throne that she had loved him; but for himself, for the things he stood for, for the things he was. What heady wine for Henry after those drab years with Catherine, after the skittish Ann Boleyn, the prim Jane Seymour, after the great Flanders Mare; at the moment when he was thinking himself old, to be renewed, rejuvenated by this exquisite young creature. What a St. Martin’s summer, what a poignant one. How he would move the audience, his actor’s skill enhanced by the presence of this lovely sprite, how divine Iris looked; she made you feel that she was truly dazzled, truly infatuated by her fate.
It was on the early scenes that he counted for his big effects. The emotional stresses of the close were obvious: the fury, the indignation of an ageing man whose young wife had betrayed him were familiar features of the stage. It was not difficult to move the audience by showing Henry as pathetic, almost pitiable. It would be an altogether different feat to make the audience realize how Katheryn had genuinely fallen in love with a man old enough to be her father, a man moreover who had become gross with self-indulgence. And he would be able to, through the look in Iris’s eyes, the glow that was in her face; and through the spur to his acting which that look, that glow provided. He could not wait till the first performance.
He paced the room, mouthing his lines.
There was a tap upon his door.
‘Come in. Ah, hello, Basil.’
He checked. He had never seen Hallett look like this before: he had seen Basil with a hangover after a heavy night when his eyelids had needed match-sticks to prop them up; but this was different. His face was haggard, his cheeks drained.
‘Are you ill?’ he asked.
Basil shook his head; but it was not a shake of denial; it was a shake of helplessness.
‘I don’t know: I’m not certain. It’s what I came to talk to you about. It’s … no, I don’t think I’m ill: but this is the wrong place for me; the humidity. I’m used to a dry heat. It’s been coming on for quite a time, this feeling. Suddenly it’s got too much for me. I can’t take any more. I must try somewhere else. I want a transfer.’
‘I see.’
Harry looked at him thoughtfully. This was not a new phenomenon in his experience. Men had these breakdowns: so did women: there was no obvious explanation. In the old days managers had shrugged their shoulders and said ‘Some chaps can’t take it’. The old-fashioned family physician with his rough and ready methods had dismissed as ‘nonsense’, ‘moonshine’, ‘nerves’, complaints that did not respond to the thermometer and stethoscope. But nowadays through medical science more was known about the illnesses that had no apparent physical basis. There might be something wrong with Basil for which a psychiatrist had the remedy. Yet all the same Pawling could not help feeling distrustful of this particular performance. Basically Basil was a feckless creature.
‘You’d better go down to the doc and have a check over,’ he said.
Basil shook his head.
‘That wouldn’t
do any good. There’s nothing to show. He’d prescribe vitamins or a fortnight’s leave in Singapore. But that’s not the point. This place is wrong for me. I’m wrong for the place. I’ve got to have a change.’
‘How long has your contract got to run?’
‘Ten months.’
‘That isn’t very long.’
‘It’s more than I can take.’
‘That’s how you feel this minute, but we all feel this way sometimes. It isn’t such an easy life out here: it’s a strain in many ways. We’re cut off from our roots. We all need roots. But we can’t transfer everyone who feels depressed. If we did, the work of the camp couldn’t be done. You see that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I see it.’
‘If a man is really ill, if the doc says he needs a change, that is another matter; that’s why I say go down to the doc, then we will consider the matter closed, and regard this conversation as never having taken place.’
Back in his office Basil stared at his empty out-tray, his full in-tray. He pressed his hands against his temples. He’d got to get away; somewhere where they could not get at him; beyond their reach, where he’d be no use, no danger to them. He was trapped. He had got to go. He looked at the chess-board and the box of chessmen. He got out his key: then wrote out a message. He need not tell them too much: enough to keep them quiet while he laid his plans. He’d got to go. Julia must work on Barbara. What was the point of having influence, if you did not pull every string.
3
At lunch that morning Harry told Blanche about his interview with Basil.
‘It was the most extraordinary performance I’ve ever seen. There he stood, with a white face, saying, “I’ve got to go. I can’t stand the place.” He was not only hysterical, he was downright rude.’
