Fuel for the Flame

by Alec Waugh

  ‘Do what you think best,’ Harry was continuing. ‘You are the best judge. It’s your department, that side of it I mean. I do the strategy. You do the tactics.’

  Never again, Basil vowed, never, never again.

  Never again, he repeated, ninety minutes later. Julia was at her dressing-table, brushing her hair. He was in bed watching her.

  ‘I feel so sorry for Harry,’ she was saying, ‘and you were quite right insisting on not having Barbara and Charles. I was stupid and tiresome about that. I’m sorry.’

  Her apology, her submissiveness heightened his sense of guilt. If she only knew why he had not wanted the Keables asked. Never again.

  ‘I’m sure that in his heart of hearts the last thing Harry wanted was a break-up with Blanche,’ she went on. ‘They never quarrelled; everybody liked them. The whole thing was so unexpected. It was Iris’s fault as much as anyone’s; or perhaps it was more Rex’s. He brought it to a head. It was the fault of their bad marriage. A bad marriage in a community is like the bad apple in a basket. Does that sound terribly smug? I’m afraid it does. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘When a woman is as unhappy as she must have been, she’ll jump at the first chance of an escape that’s offered; like someone hailing a taxi when it comes on to rain; Harry happened to be there. It wouldn’t have happened, probably, if Blanche hadn’t gone back to England; yet it seemed so right that she should go back; she had to put her children first. Don’t you feel sometimes that we’re all of us sitting on volcanoes. We’re all vulnerable; and we forget it. I’m myself so happy, everything’s the way I like it, and yet it all might fall apart. I think sometimes of all we’ve had the luck to miss. This mess-up of Blanche or Harry could happen just as well to us.’

  ‘Darling, how could it? The situations are so different.’

  ‘Not so very different, in essentials. Suppose I had had to go back to England; suppose my father was ill. I’d have to, wouldn’t I? He might linger on; I might be there three months; that’s a long time for a young man like you to be left alone. Suppose there was a wild party and Lila set her cap at you. She’s a hot number, under that reserve; a woman can tell that if a man can’t. Suppose you went the limit; it could happen. Everybody’s human. Suppose I came back to find her pregnant. What else could I do but agree to a divorce; and there’d be our whole life ruined. Something like that could happen easily.’

  If only she knew how easily it could happen; how indeed it had happened, a thing that was imperilling their whole life together, and it had begun so innocently, because he had wanted to buy a car for her. It was only because he had loved her so much that he had gambled all that money on a horse; it wasn’t for himself that he had wanted it; he was content with their old Chevrolet. It was for Julia that he had wanted the best of everything.

  ‘You’ve spent enough time on that hair of yours,’ he said. ‘Come over here.’

  His arms went round her, fondly, tenderly, with a tightening pressure.

  ‘Never think things like that,’ he said. ‘If you do, things like that will happen. If they did happen, I should die. Will you please get that firmly in your head; without you I’m nothing; without you my life is nothing. Nothing must come between us, nothing, nothing.’

  He spoke with a desperate intensity.

  Fondly, through the dusk, she smiled down at the tousled head upon her shoulder. His breathing had grown steady. Never had she been more loved, never had she felt more needed. She had no illusions about Basil. She knew him for what he was, weak, irresolute, spasmodic, brilliant at moments, basically feckless. He would never be a general manager. He would always be a problem, impatient with himself, ready to take the one more drink that would cajole him into a good opinion of himself; the one drink too many that would become three drinks too many, and because he was that kind of person or because she was the kind of woman that she was, their quarrels were likely to prove more frequent. He needed someone to stand up to him. He would have become impossible with someone over whom he could have ridden roughshod. Recently she had been assured by doctors that she could never have a child; perhaps that was as well; he was her child. A real child might have come between them. Basil would have felt left out. He needed a woman’s sole attention, and she might not if she had had a child have been on her guard, lest the father’s weakness should be repeated in her child; were not childless marriages very often the happiest, if they survived at all? The two sufficed for one another; that was what Basil needed. To be everything to a woman who was everything to him.

  In fifteen years there would be women who would pity her. ‘Poor Julia,’ they would say, ‘she deserved better luck; a husband who amounts to nothing and no children as a compensation.’ She smiled. She did not want things any different. She did not want the careerist husband who needed in marriage a hostess who would confer credit on his position, a mother for his children, an occasional solace for his senses; a flower in his buttonhole. She did not want that. She wanted to be loved as she had been tonight, needed as she knew she was, at every hour of a man’s waking life, to be quarrelled with or argued with, perhaps, but to be indispensable. She was fulfilled. She had one prayer only in her heart, that her life should go on to its close just as it was now.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Pausing in the doorway of the secretariat, Basil saw Mara Sekaran installed three desks in front of the one occupied by Ahmed. He had been working there for half a week. Basil walked across to him. ‘Are you getting on all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’

  ‘If there is anything you’re in doubt about, you’ll ask me, won’t you?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, yes, I will.’

  ‘I expect that you already know some members of our staff.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I do.’

  ‘For instance whom?’

  The Indian mentioned half a dozen names. Only two of them worked in the personnel branch. I’ll check up on them, thought Basil. The other names were not familiar. It was hard to memorize an Indian name if you had not seen it written down.

  ‘You don’t know Mahamed Gillam?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Indore Malamutt?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Ahmed Abrusak?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Fedon Semong?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  In each case the denial had been pronounced convincingly. Very likely he did not know Ahmed. Ahmed himself had no idea that his own appointment had been made through special influence.

  ‘Well, as I said, let me know if there’s anything that you’re in doubt about. Have you found a house here for your family?’

  ‘I have found a flat.’

  ‘Fine, excellent.’

  On the way back to his room he checked his step at Ahmed’s desk, thought better of it and went on to his own room. How had the Indian known that he was being posted to another camp? Had he learnt from Ahmed? But how had Ahmed known? He had a sense of utter impotence. Things were out of his control.

  On his desk once again was lying an envelope with a Karaki stamp, addressed by the familiar typewriter. He remembered when he had received the first. How light-heartedly he had slit its flap. He blinked. Never again; once out of the wood, he would be on his guard. He had learnt his lesson.

  His hands were unsteady as he set out the pieces. There was no reason why they should have been. This message could only bring good news; but he had a sense of omen. ‘Thursday nineteen thirty Gate Dempsey Avenue,’ he read.

  Gate Dempsey Avenue. What a strange place to choose. Six months ago it had been the inner gate to the refinery; now, since the main gates had been left unlocked at night, it had become the outer gate. It had no sentry at night but it was patrolled. A sentry would pass it every twenty minutes. There was a collection of small huts outside it which were used for storage. Why had it been chosen? His presence there late at night would surprise anyone who saw him. Until now the
Indian had been at such special pains to arrange their meetings under conditions that would not excite comment, the barber’s, the supermarket, the museum. Why had he changed his procedure now?

  His telephone bell rang. ‘It’s Harry here. Can I see you for a minute.’

  Harry greeted him with a grin. ‘Good news for you. Very good. Your transfer’s through. It’s to Trinidad.’

  Trinidad, the other side of the globe; as far as any place could be from Karak, and all that went with Karak. If he couldn’t make a clean start there, where could he?

  ‘How soon do I start?’

  ‘As soon as you’ve handed over; your replacement left London yesterday.’

  ‘Handing over shouldn’t take a week.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should.’

  ‘Am I to go straight to Trinidad?’

  ‘That was the idea.’

  ‘With Julia following by boat?’

  ‘That should be the simplest way.’

  ‘Then I’d better plan to throw a good-bye party on Saturday week.’

  ‘I’ll book it in my diary.’

  Back in his room Basil looked contemptuously at the chess-board. No need to bother about that now. Saturday week was only eleven days away; two days later he would be in the air; and within sixty hours he would have those cheques returned to him. He would not have a trouble in the world. He swept the chessmen back into their box. Why should he worry about the Indian’s choice of rendezvous? He had his own good reasons, doubtless; as he had always had. He knew his business, leave him to run it in his own way. Yes, but what was that business? He hesitated, thinking of Ahmed Abrusak and Mara Sekaran hunched over their desks in the next room. What were they doing there? Why had the Indian gone to such pains and such expense to have them doing it? What kind of a legacy was he leaving to his replacement? He shrugged. He could not start worrying about that now. Whatever he had done or hadn’t done, the Indian would have found some way of getting those two men into this office. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else!

  2

  Thursday morning was like any other morning. The air fresh and scented; with a few negligent clouds drifting over a pale blue sky; clouds that would disappear as the day’s heat mounted as the sky grew paler, and the flowers lost their freshness under the heavy sun; a day like any other. One week was like another here, one month was like another. There was rain every day; there was sunlight every day; there was no dry season and no wet season; no spring, no autumn. It was a little hotter between January and March, a little cooler in July and August; but if after an illness you had lost your memory and all sense of time and were suddenly landed here, you could not tell what month it was. For every single person in this camp, this day would be indistinguishable from three hundred others; only for him would it be a special red-letter day; the day of his release.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you,’ Julia asked at lunch, ‘that we’re having cocktails with the Foleys?’

  He had, completely.

  ‘I’m sorry, it slipped my memory.’

  ‘How lucky I reminded you.’

  ‘I wish you had earlier, it’s too late now.’

  ‘Why ever should it be.’

  ‘Because I’m doing something else.’

  ‘Another party?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘At that time of day—or rather night?’

  ‘My replacement is due tomorrow. I’ve a fantastic amount to settle.’

  ‘Couldn’t you do this some other time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s not possible.’

  ‘I particularly want to go to the Foleys’.’

  ‘Nothing’s stopping you.’

  ‘But I prefer going there with you.’

  ‘And so you shall. I’ll take you there; then go away, then come back to fetch you.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as though it were an important piece of work.’

  ‘It is important, but it won’t take long.’

  ‘I see.’

  There was a suspicious expression on her face. Was she going to make difficulties, was this going to start a fight? He remembered the trouble he had had when he had cancelled that game of golf. She was poised for battle. He braced himself. It was the last time; he wouldn’t have to lie again. He had only to see this one issue through.

  She shrugged, ‘If you must, you must,’ she said. It was said ungraciously but the fight had been avoided. Her decision not to quarrel seemed a happy omen.

  On his desk was a letter in an unfamiliar script, with a Karaki stamp; a half-sheet of paper was wrapped round a type of paper with which he was too familiar; a chess problem. He unfolded the covering half-sheet. It was signed by Forrester. ‘Can you solve this, it has baffled me?’

  Trembling, he held it in his hands. Four months ago he had copied down a problem that had been set out in the policeman’s office. But it was the first time that Forrester had handed him a problem; the first time indeed that Forrester had referred to chess since the day when he had copied down the places on that board. It had been a shock when he had deciphered it. Why had he not thought of it again? Why had he not reminded himself that Forrester, whether or not he could decipher them, had access to these messages in code? Had this subconscious self refused out of cowardice to take full cognizance? Had he suppressed it without knowing he was doing so; had that unconscious suppression been partially responsible for his state of nerves? How could one tell how one’s mind was working? You’d better work this out, he warned himself.

  Four minutes later, he was staring at the decoded message: ‘Zero hour Thursday nineteen thirty.’

  He began to tremble. Nineteen thirty; the very moment at which he was to meet the Indian. How could this meeting be of concern to anybody except the Indian and himself? How had it come to be a message sent in code to someone he did not know, to be intercepted by Forrester?

  It must refer to himself. The same code and the same date. Why had Forrester sent it to him? Had Forrester decoded it? Was it chance that the message had reached him on this very day? Did it matter whether Forrester had or had not broken the code? The fact remained—and it was the one thing that did matter—that for someone his meeting with the Indian that evening was a zero hour.

  He swept the chessmen off the board. He put his head round the door of the secretariat.

  ‘I’ll be out for twenty minutes,’ he said.

  He drove to Dempsey Avenue. He stopped fifty yards from the gate. The collection of huts beside it was meagre and dilapidated. Their removal had been often mooted. One day when there was personnel to spare, they would be moved. Inside the gate, which by day was open, a watchman stood on guard, checking the credentials of every entrant; at six o’clock the gate was locked, the few who needed to get inside the fence used another entrance. A few yards inside the fence soared the structure of the cracking plant. Was it credible that an act of sabotage was planned tonight? He recalled that futile attempt on the Crown Princess’s life. Violence had been used once. It might be used again; but if it were to be used, what was his connexion with it? How could there be the least connexion? The cracking plant looked so secure. How could it be in danger, and anyhow the security of the installation was not his concern. Don’t worry, he adjured himself. Leave this to the people whose job it is to worry over it. In two weeks’ time all this will be a memory. You’ll be in Trinidad, starting afresh, with a clean sheet. Sit firm, do nothing and you’ll be all right.

  He put his car into gear and swung it round. It was two o’clock. In five and a half hours’ time he would be standing by the gate beside the storage huts. He would hold in his hand the three incriminating slips of paper, and his troubles would be at an end.

  Five and half hours’ time. Zero hour for whom, for what? Were Ahmed Abrusak and Mara Sekaran a part of it? But that was not his concern. Would they be a part of it except for him, would there be a zero hour but for him? Once again he consoled himself with the oft-used opiate. If it hadn’t been me, it
would have been someone else.

  During the ten minutes he had been away, a new file had been put upon his desk. It contained the Old Man’s comments on a scheme he had prepared to prevent duplication of work in the repair department. ‘General idea excellent,’ the Old Man had pencilled, ‘faulty in detail. Note my comments.’

  Faulty in detail. Basil smiled wryly. How typical of him that was. He opened the file, turning the pages, looking for Charles Keable’s pencilled comments, excited that his scheme should have been approved, curious to find where it was weak. If I get this right, he thought, I’d make a saving of two per cent in that department’s turnover.

  He felt a glow of pride. He might be careless, he might be slipshod, but he was creative. He did initiate work. Because of me … He paused. Because of him, who knew what might happen tonight to the economy of this camp, this branch of Pearl’s many-dominioned empire. Against his two per cent saving in one department might be set the destruction of machinery whose value … who could estimate its value coupled with the loss of output, possibly, too, the loss of life? How illogical that he should be working so hard on this report at the very moment when he was conniving at an act of sabotage.

  He got up, walked over to the window. His brain was racing. Illogical, but weren’t we all illogical? Who could be more illogical than the moneyed socialist who financed, with the dividends from capitalist enterprise, the campaign that was to undermine and ultimately destroy capitalism? Nobody was logical the whole way through. Theory was in conflict with private or personal interest. The energy with which he worked for Pearl was directed and inspired by a personal need to improve his own position; his loyalty to Pearl was based on the necessity to himself of Pearl’s prosperity. The more he could do for Pearl, the more Pearl could do for him. Wasn’t that the basis of ambition? Wasn’t the patriot the man who was able to identify the state’s interests with his own; unable to believe that what was in his interest was not also in the state’s? It was clear where his own interest lay at the moment: to do nothing, not to inculpate himself: to get out of Karak safely, to begin a new life in Trinidad. That might not be in Pearl’s interest but it was in his, except …