'I hope Miss Dean wasn't shocked.'
'Shocked?' Robin put his head on one side and considered the matter. 'I'm sure she wasn't,' he replied, 'but I was rather shocked myself when we saw that car that had broken down by the side of the road, and we drove past it without stopping.'
Colonel Mason closed the bedroom door behind them, and all three walked along the corridor.
'Car?' he asked. 'What car? I don't remember seeing one.'
'You were looking the other way, Grandfather,' said Robin. 'You were pointing out to Mr Foster a place where there had been machine-guns in your day. Perhaps nobody saw the broken-down car but myself. The guide was busy showing us the site of the Good Samaritan Inn. The car was a few yards further along the road.'
'The driver had probably run out of petrol,' said Althea. 'I dare say somebody came along shortly. It seemed a busy road.'
She caught sight of her reflection in the long mirror at the end of the corridor, and adjusted the piece of blue organza.
Jim Foster was having a quick one in the bar. Or two, to be exact. Then when the others appeared he would stand everybody drinks, and Kate would have to lump it. She would scarcely have the nerve to tick him off in front of everyone with threats of a coronary and the number of calories contained in a double gin. He looked round at the chattering throng. God, what a mob! The Chosen Race in full possession, and good luck to them, especially the women, although the young ones were better looking in Haifa. Nobody worth crossing the room for here. This lot were probably from New York's East Side anyway, and not indigenous. The hotel was lousy with tourists, and it would be worse tomorrow in Jerusalem proper. He had a good mind to cry off the sight-seeing and hire a car to take himself and Kate down to the Dead Sea, where there was this talk of installing a plant for making plastics. The Israelis had hit on a new method of processing, and you could bet your life that if they were on to something they believed in it would prosper. Bloody silly to come all this way and not be able to talk with authority about the site when he got home. Sheer waste of expense account. Hullo, here come the honeymooners. No need to ask what they had been doing since decanting from the bus! Though on second thoughts you never could be sure. Bob Smith looked a bit strained. Perhaps the bride, like all red-heads, was insatiable. A drink would put new strength into both of them.
'Come on, the bridal pair,' he called. 'The choice of drinks is yours, the damage mine. Let's all relax.'
Gallantly he slid off his stool and offered it to Jill Smith, taking care to allow his hand to remain just one instant beneath her small posterior as she mounted his vacated seat.
'Thanks ever so, Mr Foster,' said the bride, and to prove that she had not lost her self-possession, and was aware that his lingering hand was intended for a compliment, she added, 'I don't know about Bob, but I'd like champagne.'
The remark was made with such defiance that the bridegroom flushed scarlet. Oh hell, he thought. Mr Foster will fluff. He can't help fluffing from Jill's tone that… that it's not working out, that I just can't somehow get going. It's a nightmare, I don't know what's wrong, I shall have to ask a doctor, I…
'Whisky, please, sir,' he said.
'Whisky it shall be,' smiled Jim Foster, 'and for heaven's sake don't either of you call me anything but Jim.'
He commanded a champagne cocktail for Jill, a double whisky for Bob, and a large gin-and-tonic for himself, and as he did so his wife Kate pushed through the crowd hovering at the bar and heard him give the order.
I knew it, thought Kate. I knew that was the reason he came downstairs before I had finished dressing, so that he could get to the bar before me. And he's got his eye on that chit of a girl, what's more. Hasn't the decency to leave anything young and female alone, even on her honeymoon. Thank heaven she had put a stop to his idea of meeting up with business friends in Tel Aviv and letting her come to Jerusalem alone. She was not going to let him get away with that one, thank you very much. If only Colonel Mason wasn't such an old bore and Lady Althea such a colossal snob the visit to Jerusalem could be so rewarding, especially to anyone with a spark of intelligence and an interest in world affairs. But what did they care? They hadn't even bothered to come to the talk she had given in Little Bletford on the world refugee problem a few weeks ago, making the excuse that they never went out in the evenings, which was quite untrue. If Lady Althea thought more about other people and less about the fact that she was the only surviving daughter of a peer who had never even risen to his feet in the House of Lords, and was said to be dotty anyway, Kate would have more respect for her. As it was… She looked about her, indignation rising. All these tourists drinking and enjoying themselves, and spending the money that might have gone to Oxfam or some other worthwhile charity, it made her feel quite ashamed to be amongst them. Well, if there was nothing active she could do to help world causes at the moment, she could at least break up Jim's little party and put him in his place. She advanced towards the bar, her high colour clashing with her magenta blouse.
'Now, Mr Smith,' she said, 'don't encourage my husband. He's been told by his doctor to cut down on his drinking and smoking, or he'll have a coronary. It's no use making that face at me, Jim, you know it's true. As a matter of fact, we'd all of us be better without alcohol. Statistics prove that the damage to the liver through even quite a modest intake is incalculable.'
Bob Smith replaced his glass on the bar counter. He was just beginning to feel more sure of himself. Now Mrs Foster had gone and spoilt it all.
'Oh, don't mind me,' she said, 'nobody ever listens to a word I say, but one of these days the world will wake up to the fact that by drinking only pure fruit juices the human being can stand ten times the stress and strain of modern life. We should all live longer, look younger, achieve greater things. Yes, I'd like a grapefruit juice, please. Plenty of ice.'
Pheugh! It was stuffy. She could feel the flush rising from her neck right up to her temples, and then descending in a slow-moving war, e, What a fool she was… She had forgotten to take her hormones.
Jill Smith watched Kate Foster over the rim of her champagne glass. She must be older than he was. Looked it, anyway. You never could tell with middle-aged people, and men were most deceptive. She had read somewhere that men went on doing it until they were nearly ninety, but women lost interest after the change of life. Perhaps Mrs Foster was right about fruit-juice being good for you. Oh, why did Bob have to wear that spotted tie? It made him look so pasty. And he had such a schoolboy appearance beside Mr Foster. Fancy telling them to call him Jim! He was touching her arm again. Honestly! The fact that she was on her honeymoon didn't seem to put men off but rather egged them on, if he was anything to go by. She nodded when he suggested another glass of champagne.
'Don't let Mrs Foster hear you,' she whispered. 'She would say it would damage my liver.'
'My dear girl,' he murmured, 'a liver as young as yours will stand years of punishment. Mine is already pickled.'
Jill giggled. The things he said! And drinking down her second champagne cocktail she forgot about the unhappy scene in the bedroom upstairs, with Bob, white and tense, telling her she wasn't responding properly and it was not his fault. Staring defiantly at Bob, who was agreeing politely with Mrs Foster about starvation in the Middle East and Asia and India, she leant pointedly against Jim Foster's arm and said, 'I don't know why Lady Althea picked on this hotel. The one the purser recommended was right in Jerusalem, and it runs a tour of the city by night, ending up in a night club, drinks included.'
Miss Dean peered about her short-sightedly. How was she going to find the rest of the party amongst such a crowd of strangers? If only dear Father Garfield had been with them, he would never have left her to fend for herself. That young clergyman who was replacing him had barely said two words to her, and she felt sure he wasn't an Anglican. Probably disapproved of vestments, and had never intoned in his life. If she could catch sight of Lady Althea or the Colonel it would be something, although Lady Althea, bless her, wa
s inclined to be just a little snubby sometimes, but then she must have a lot on her mind. It was so good of her to take all the trouble she had done with the tour.
Jerusalem… Jerusalem… Well, the daughters of Jerusalem would certainly weep if they could see this big agnostic crowd on the Mount of Olives. It really did not seem right to have a modern hotel on such a hallowed spot, where Our Lord had wandered so frequently with his disciples on his way to Jerusalem from Bethany. How she had missed Father when the bus paused for a few minutes in the village and the guide had pointed out the ruined church beneath which, so he said, the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus had stood two thousand years ago! Father would have brought it so vividly to life. She could have pictured the modest but comfortable home, the well-swept kitchen, Martha in charge and Mary not too helpful, probably, with clearing the dishes, reminding her, when she read the passage in the Gospel, of her own younger sister Dora, who never did a hand's turn if there was a good programme on television. Not that one could compare Mary at Bethany listening to Our Lord's wonderful sermons with someone like Malcolm Muggeridge asking the question why, but after all, as Father always said, one should try and relate the past to the present, and then one would come to a better understanding of what everything meant.
Ah, there was Lady Althea coming along the corridor now. How distinguished she looked, so English, so refined amongst the rest of the people here in the hotel, who seemed mostly foreigners, and the Colonel at her side every inch the soldier and gentleman. Little Robin was such an original child. Fancy him making that remark about Our Lord being surprised if he could see electric light. 'But He invented it, dear,' she had told him. 'Everything that has ever been invented or discovered was Our Lord's doing.' She was afraid it had not sunk into his little mind. No matter. There would be other opportunities to make the right impression upon him.
'Well, Miss Dean,' said the Colonel, advancing towards her, 'I hope you feel rested after the long bus ride, and have a good appetite for dinner?'
'Thank you, Colonel, yes, I am quite refreshed, but a little bewildered. Do you think we shall have English food, or will it be that greasy foreign stuff? I have to be careful with my inside.'
'Well, if my experience in the Near East is anything to go by, avoid fresh fruit and melon. Likewise salad. They never wash them properly. Had more tummy trouble amongst the troops in the old days with fruit and salad than anything else.'
'Oh, Phil, what nonsense,' smiled Lady Althea. 'You're living in the past. Of course everything is washed in an up-to-date place like this. Don't take any notice of him, Miss Dean. We shall be served a five-course dinner, and you must do justice to everything they put on your plate. Just picture your sister Dora sitting down to a boiled egg at home, and think how she would envy you.'
Now that, thought Miss Dean, was kindly meant but uncalled for. Why should Lady Althea imagine that she and Dora never had more than a boiled egg for supper? It was true they ate sparsely in the evening, but that was because they both had small appetites. It was nothing to do with the way they lived or what they could afford. Now, if Father had been here he would have known just how to answer Lady Althea. He would have told her-laughingly, of course, for he was so courteous-that he had been better fed by the two Miss Deans in Syringa Cottage than anywhere else in Little Bletford.
'Thank you, Colonel,' she said, addressing herself pointedly to him, 'I shall follow your advice about the fruit and salad. As to the five-course menu, I shall reserve judgement until I see what they have to offer.'
She hoped she would be sitting next to the Colonel at dinner. He was so considerate. And he knew Jerusalem of old-he was quite an authority.
'Your grandson,' she said to him, 'makes friends very easily. He is not at all shy.'
'Oh yes,' replied Colonel Mason, 'Robin's an excellent mixer. Part of my training, I like to think. He reads a lot too. Most children never open a book.'
'Your son-in-law is a scientist, is he not?' said Miss Dean. 'Scientists are such clever men. Perhaps the little boy takes after his father.'
'H'm, I don't know about that,' said the Colonel.
Silly old fool, he thought. Doesn't know what she's talking about. Robin was a Mason all right. Reminded him of himself at the same age. He used to be a great reader too. And imaginative.
'Come on, Robin,' he called, 'your grandmother wants her dinner.'
'Really, Phil,' said Lady Althea, half-amused but rot entirely so, 'you make me sound like the wolf in Red Riding Hood.'
She walked leisurely through the lounge, aware of the many heads that were turned in her direction, not because of her husband's remark, which few people had heard, but because she knew that, despite her sixty-odd years, she was the best-looking and most distinguished woman present. She looked around for the party from Little Bletford, deciding as she did so how she would seat them at dinner. Oh, there they were in the bar-all, that is to say, except Babcock. She dispatched her husband in search of him, and moving into the restaurant summoned the head waiter with an imperious finger.
Her seating plan worked out very well, and everyone appeared satisfied. Miss Dean did justice to the five-course dinner and the wine, though possibly it was a little tactless to lift her glass as soon as it was filled and say to her left-hand neighbour, the Rev. Babcock, 'Let us wish dear Father a speedy recovery, and I am sure he knows how sorely we all miss him here this evening.'
It was not until they were embarking upon the third course that she realised the full import of her words, and remembered that the young man talking to her was not a social worker in the midlands at all but a clergyman himself, acting as deputy for her own beloved vicar. The glass of sherry in the bar had made her light-headed, and the fact that the Rev. Babcock did not wear a clergyman's collar had somehow confused the whole situation.
'Be very careful what you eat,' she said to him, hoping to make amends for any small hurt her words had caused. 'The Colonel says that fruit and salad are not advisable. The native people do not rinse them thoroughly. I think roast lamb would be a wise choice.'
Edward Babcock stared at her use of the word native. Did Miss Dean imagine herself in the wilds of Africa? Just how out of touch with the world of today could you get, he wondered, living in a village in southern England?
'In my rough-and-ready fashion,' he told her, helping himself to ragout of chicken, 'I believe we do more good in the world by seeing how the other half lives than by just sticking to our own routine. We have quite a number of Pakistanis and Jamaicans in our club, amongst our own local lads, and they take it in turn to prepare a meal in the canteen. We get some surprises, I don't mind telling you! But it's a case of share and share alike, and the boys enjoy it.'
'Quite right, padre, quite right,' said the Colonel, who had heard the tail-end of this remark. 'It's absolutely essential to promote a spirit of goodwill in the Mess. Morale goes to pieces if you don't.'
Jim Foster pushed Jill Smith's foot under the table. The old boy was off again. Where did he think he was-Poona? Jill Smith retaliated by bumping her knee against his. They had reached the stage of mutual for-want-of-anything-better-attraction when bodily contact brings warmth, and the most harmless remark made by others suggests a double meaning.
'Depends what you share and who you share it with, don't you agree?' he murmured.
'Once married a girl has no choice,' she murmured back. 'She has to take what her husband gives her.'
Then, noticing Mrs Foster staring at her across the table, she opened her eyes, wide and innocent, and bumped Jim Foster's knee once more to cement duplicity.
Lady Althea, glancing round the restaurant at the occupants of the other tables, wondered if Jerusalem had been such a good choice after all. Nobody of much interest here. Perhaps there would be a better class of people in the Lebanon. Still, it was only for twenty-four hours, and then they would rejoin the boat and go on to Cyprus. She would be content that Phil and darling Robin were enjoying themselves. She must tell Robin not to s
it with his mouth open. He was such a good-looking child, and it made him appear half-witted. Kate Foster was surely feeling the heat, she had become very flushed.
'But you should have signed the petition against the manufacture of nerve gas,' Kate was saying to Bob Smith. 'I got more than a thousand names on my appeal list, and it's up to every one of us to see that this frightful business is stopped. How will you like it,' she demanded, banging on the table, 'when your children are born deaf, maimed, and blind, because of this terrible chemical that will pollute succeeding generations unless we all unite to prevent its manufacture?'
'Oh, come,' protested the Colonel, 'the authorities have everything under control. And the stuff isn't lethal. We must have a certain amount in stock in case of riots. Somebody has to deal with the scallywags of the world. Now, in my humble opinion…'
'Never mind your humble opinion, Phil dear,' interrupted his wife. 'I think we are all getting a little too serious, and we haven't come to Jerusalem to discuss nerve gas, or riots, or anything of the sort. We are here to take back pleasant memories of one of the most famous cities in the world.'
Silence was instant. She smiled upon them all. A good hostess knew when to change a party's mood. Even Jim Foster, momentarily quelled, removed his hand from Jill Smith's knee. The question was, who would be the first to speak and set the ball rolling in a new direction? Robin knew that his moment had arrived. He had been awaiting his opportunity all through dinner. His scientist father had told him never to introduce a subject or speak about it unless he were sure of his facts, and he had taken good care to be well-primed. He had consulted the courier-guide in the foyer before dinner, and he knew that his facts were correct. The grown-ups would be obliged to listen. The very thought of this was delicious, giving him a tremendous sense of power. He leant forward across the table, his spectacles slightly out of balance, his head on one side.
'I wonder if any of you know,' he said, 'that today is the 13th day of Nisan?' Then he leant back in his chair for his words to take effect.
Not After Midnight & Other Stories Page 19
