‘For instance, I wrote something about my first unit when I was with them,’ he said.
‘Recite it to us.’
Stevens laughed, a merely formal gesture of modesty. He turned to me.
‘Nicholas,’ he said, ‘were you ever junior subaltern in your battalion?’
‘For what seemed a lifetime.’
‘And proposed the King’s health in the Mess on guest nights?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Mr Vice, the Loyal Toast—then you rose to your feet and said: Gentlemen, the King.’
‘Followed by The Allied Regiments—such-and-such a regiment of Canada and such-and-such a regiment of Australia.’
‘Do you mean to say this actually happened to you yourself, Nick?’ asked Moreland. ‘You stood up and said Gentlemen, the King?’
He showed total incredulity.
‘I used to love it,’ said Stevens. ‘Put everything I had into the words. It was the only thing I liked about the dump. I only asked all this because I wrote some lines called Guest Night.’
‘Shoot them off,’ said Moreland.
Stevens cleared his throat, then, without the least self-consciousness, began his recitation in a low, dramatic voice:
‘On Thursday it’s a parade to dine,
The Allied Regiments and the King
Are pledged in dregs of tawny wine,
But now the Colonel’s taken wing.
Yet subalterns still talk and tease
(Wide float the clouds of Craven A
Stubbed out in orange peel and cheese)
Of girls and Other Ranks and pay.
If—on last night-scheme—B Coy broke
The bipod of the borrowed bren:
The Sergeants’ Mess is out of coke:
And Gordon nearly made that Wren.
Along the tables of the Mess
The artificial tulips blow,
Tired as a prostitute’s caress
Their crimson casts no gladdening glow.
Why do those phallic petals fret
The heart, till coils—like Dannert wire—
Concentrically expand regret
For lost true love and found desire?
While Haw-Haw, from the radio,
Aggrieved, insistent, down the stair,
With distant bugles, sweet and low,
Commingles on the winter air.’
Stevens ceased to declaim. He smiled and sat back in his seat. He was certainly unaware of the entirely new conception of himself his own spoken verses had opened up for me. Their melancholy revealed quite another side of his nature, one concealed as a rule by aggressive cheerfulness. This melancholy was no doubt a logical counterpart, the reverse surface of the coin, one to be expected from high spirits of his own particular sort, bound up as they were with a perpetual discharge of personality. All the same, one never learns to expect the obvious. This contrast of feeling in him might have been an element that attracted Priscilla, something she recognised when they first met at Frederica’s; something more fundamentally melodramatic, even, than Lovell himself could achieve. We all expressed appreciation. Moreland was, I think, almost as surprised as myself.
‘Not much like Max’s stuff though,’ he said.
‘All the same, Max Pilgrim was the source.’
‘Nor very cheerful,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘I do believe you’re as morbid as Moreland is himself.’
Although she spoke in her accustomed spirit of depreciation, Stevens must have achieved his aim in making more or less of a conquest, because she smiled quite kindly at him after saying that. Moved by her complaisance, or, more likely, by the repetition of his own lines, his face registered self-pity.
‘I wasn’t feeling very cheerful at the time,’ he said. ‘That unit I went to as a one-pipper fairly got me down.’
Then, immediately, one of those instantaneous changes of mood, that were so much a part of him, took place.
‘Would you like to hear one of the bawdy ones?’ he asked.
Before anyone could reply, another officer, a big captain with a red face and cropped hair, like Stevens also wearing battle-dress, passed our table. Catching sight of Stevens, this man began to roar with laughter and point.
‘Odo, my son,’ he yelled. ‘Fancy seeing your ugly mug here.’
‘God, Brian, you old swine.’
‘I suppose you’ve been painting the town red, and, like me, have got to catch the night train back to the bloody grind again. I’ve been having a pretty wet weekend, I can tell you.’
‘Come and have a drink, Brian. There’s lots of time.’
‘Not going to risk being cashiered for WOASAWL.’
‘What on earth’s that he said?’ asked Mrs Maclintick.
‘While-On-Active-Service-Absent-Without-Leave,’ said Stevens, characteristically not allowing her even for a second out of his power by disregarding the question. ‘Oh, come on, Brian, no hurry yet.’
The red-faced captain was firm.
‘Got to find a taxi, for one thing. Besides, I’ve baggage to pick up.’
Stevens looked at his watch.
‘I’ve got baggage too,’ he said, ‘a valise and a kit bag and some other junk. Perhaps you’re right, Brian, and I’d do well to accompany you. Anyway it would halve the taxi fare.’
He rose from the table.
‘Then I’ll be bidding you all goodbye,’ he said.
‘Do you really have to go?’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘We’re just beginning to get to know you. Are you annoyed about something, like the girl you were with?’
In the course of her life she could rarely have gone further towards making an effort to show herself agreeable. It was a triumph for Stevens. He laughed, conscious of this, pleased at his success.
‘Duty calls,’ he said. ‘I only wish I could stay till four in the morning, but they’re beginning to shut down here as it is, even if I hadn’t a train to catch.’
We said goodbye to him.
‘Wonderful to have met you, Mr Moreland,’ said Stevens. ‘Here’s to the next performance of Vieux Port on the same programme as your newest work—and may I be there to hear. Goodbye, Nicholas.’
He held out his hand. From being very sure of himself, he had now reverted a little to that less absolute confidence of the days when I had first known him. He was probably undecided as to the most effective note to strike in taking leave of us. It may at last have dawned on him that all the business of Priscilla could include embarrassments of a kind to which he had hitherto given little or no thought. The hesitation he showed possibly indicated indecision as to whether or not he should make further reference to her sudden withdrawal from the party. If, for a second, he had contemplated speaking of that, he must have changed his mind.
‘We’ll be meeting again,’ he said.
‘Goodbye.’
‘And Happy Landings.’
‘Come on, Odo, you oaf,’ said the red-faced captain, ‘cut out the fond farewells, or there won’t be a cab left on the street. We’ve got to get cracking. Don’t forget there’ll be all that waffle with the RTO.’
They went off together, slapping each other on the back. ‘He’s a funny boy,’ said Mrs Maclintick.
Stevens had made an impression on her. There could be no doubt of that. The way she spoke showed it. Although his presence that night had been unwelcome to myself—and the other two at first had also displayed no great wish to have him at the table—a distinct sense of flatness was discernible now Stevens was gone. Even Moreland, who had fidgeted when Mrs Maclintick had expressed regrets at this departure, seemed aware that the conviviality of the party was reduced by his removal. I said I should have to be making for bed.
‘Oh, God, don’t let’s break it all up at once,’ Moreland said. ‘We’ve only just met. Those others prevented our talking of any of the things we really want to discuss—like the meaning of art, or how to get biscuits on the black market.’
‘They won’t serve any more drink here.’
‘All right—but not for long.’
We paid the bill, went out into Regent Street. In the utter blackness, the tarts, strange luminous form of nocturnal animal life, flickered the bulbs of their electric torches. From time to time one of them would play the light against her own face in self-advertisement, giving the effect of candles illuminating a holy picture in the shadows of a church.
‘Ingenious,’ said Moreland.
‘Don’t doubt Maclintick would have found it so,’ said Mrs Maclintick, not without bitterness.
A taxi set down its passengers nearby. We secured it. Moreland gave the address of the flat where he used to live with Matilda.
‘I’ve come to the conclusion the characteristic women most detest in a man is unselfishness,’ he said.
This remark had no particular bearing on anything that had gone before, evidently giving expression only to one of his long interior trains of thought.
‘They don’t have to put up with much of it,’ said Mrs Maclintick. ‘It’s passed me by these forty years, but perhaps I’m lucky.’
‘How their wives must have hated those saintly kings in the Middle Ages,’ Moreland said. ‘Still, as you truly remark, Audrey, one’s speaking rather academically.’
The taxi had already driven off, and Moreland was putting the key in the lock of the front-door of the house, when the Air-raid Warning began to sound.
‘Just timed it nicely,’ Moreland said. ‘That’s the genuine article, not like the faint row when we were at dinner. No doubt at all allowed to remain in the mind. Are the flat’s curtains drawn? I was the last to leave and it’s the sort of thing I always forget to do.’
‘Max will have fixed them,’ said Mrs Maclintick.
We climbed the stairs, of which there were a great number, as they occupied the top floor flat.
‘I hope Max is all right,’ she said. ‘I never like the idea of him being out in a raid. There’s bound to be trouble if he spends the night in a shelter. He’s always talking about giving the Underground a try-out, but I tell him I won’t have him doing any such thing.’
If Moreland was one of Mrs Maclintick’s children, clearly Max Pilgrim was another. We entered the flat behind her. Moreland did not turn on the switch until it was confirmed all windows were obscured. In the light, the apartment was revealed as untidier than in Matilda’s day, otherwise much the same in outward appearance and decoration.
‘Max . . .’ shouted Mrs Maclintick.
She uttered this call from the bedroom. A faint answering cry came from another room further up the short passage. Its message was indeterminate, the tone, high and tremulous, bringing back echoes of a voice that had twittered through myriad forgotten night-clubs in the small hours.
‘We’ve got a visitor, Max,’ shouted Mrs Maclintick again.
‘I hope there’ll turn out to be some beer left,’ said Moreland. ‘I don’t feel all that sure.’
He went into the kitchen. I remained in the passage. A door slowly opened at the far end. Max Pilgrim appeared, a tall willowy figure in horn-rimmed spectacles and a green brocade dressing gown. It was years since I had last seen him, where, I could not even remember, whether in the distance at a party, or, less likely, watching his act at some cabaret show. For a time he had shared a flat with Isobel’s brother, Hugo, but we had not been in close touch with Hugo at that period, and had, as it happened, never visited the place. There had been talk of Pilgrim giving up his performances in those days and joining Hugo in the decorating business. Even at that time, Pilgrim’s songs had begun to ‘date’, professionally speaking. However, that project had never come off, and, whatever people might say about being old-fashioned, Pilgrim continued to find himself in demand right up to the outbreak of war. Now, of course, he expressed to audiences all that was most nostalgic. Although his hair was dishevelled—perhaps because of that—he looked at this very moment as if about to break into one of his songs. He moved a little way up the passage, then paused.
‘Here you are at last, my dears,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you. You must forgive what I’m looking like, which must be a perfect sight. I took off my slap before going to bed and am presenting you with a countenance natural and unadorned, something I’m always most unwilling to do.’
He certainly appeared pale as death. I had thought at first he was merely looking much older than I remembered. Now I accepted as explanation what he had said about lack of make-up. I noticed, too, that his right hand was bandaged. The voice was fainter than usual. He looked uncertainly at me, disguised in uniform. I explained I was Hugo’s brother-in-law; that we had met once or twice in the past. Pilgrim took my right hand in his left.
‘My dear . . .’
‘How are you?’
‘I’ve been having a most unenjoyable evening,’ he said.
He did not at once release my hand. For some reason I felt a sudden lack of ease, an odd embarrassment, even apprehension, although absolutely accustomed to the rather unduly fervent social manner he was employing. I tried to withdraw from his grasp, but he held on tenaciously, almost as if he were himself requiring actual physical support.
‘We hoped you were coming on from the Madrid to join us at dinner,’ I said. ‘Hugh tells me you were doing some of the real old favourites there.’
‘I was.’
‘Did you leave the Madrid too late?’
Then Max Pilgrim let go my hand. He folded his arms. His eyes were fixed on me. Although no longer linked to him by his own grasp, I continued to feel indefinably uncomfortable.
‘You knew the Madrid?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been there—not often.’
‘But enjoyed yourself there?’
‘Always.’
‘You’ll never do that again.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Madrid is no more,’ he said.
‘Finished?’
‘Finished.’
‘The season or just your act?’
‘The place—the building—the tables and chairs—the dance-floor—the walls—the ceiling—all those gold pillars. A bomb hit the Madrid full pitch this evening.’
‘Max . . .’
Mrs Maclintick let out a cry. It was a reasonable moment to give expression to a sense of horror. Moreland had come into the passage from the kitchen, carrying a bottle of beer and three glasses. He stood for a moment, saying nothing; then we all went into the sitting-room. Pilgrim at once took the armchair. He nursed his bound hand, rocking himself slowly forward and back.
‘In the middle of my act,’ he said. ‘It was getting the bird in a big way. Never experienced the like before, even on tour.’
‘So there was a blitz earlier in the evening,’ said Moreland.
‘There was,’ said Pilgrim. ‘There certainly was.’
No one spoke for some seconds. Pilgrim continued to sit in the chair, looking straight in front of him, holding his wounded hand with the other. I knew there was a question I ought to ask, but felt almost physically inhibited from forming the words. In the end, Mrs Maclintick, not myself, put the enquiry.
‘Anybody killed?’
Pilgrim nodded.
‘Many?’
Pilgrim nodded again.
‘Helped to get some of them out,’ he said.
‘There were a lot?’
‘Of course it’s a ghastly muddle on these occasions,’ he said. ‘Frenzied. Like Dante’s Inferno. All in the blackout too. The wardens and I carried out six or seven at least. Must have. They’d all had it. I knew some of them personally. Nasty business, I can assure you. I suppose a few got away with it—like myself. They tried to persuade me to go with them and have some treatment, but after I’d had my hand bound up, all I wanted was home, sweet home. It’s only a scratch, so I came back and tucked up. But I’m glad you’re all here. Very glad.’
&n
bsp; There was no escape now. So far as possible, certainty had to be established. An effort must be made.
‘Bijou Ardglass was there with a party.’
Pilgrim looked at me with surprise.
‘You knew that?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Were you asked? If so, you were lucky to have another engagement.’
‘They were—’
‘Bijou’s table was just where it came through the ceiling.’
‘So—’
‘I’m afraid it was Bijou’s last party.’
Pilgrim glanced away, quickly passing the bandaged hand across his eyes. It was an instinctive, not in the least dramatised, gesture.
‘But the rest of them?’
‘No one survived from that corner. That was where the worst of the damage was done. My end of the room wasn’t so bad. That’s why I’m here now.’
‘You’re sure all the Ardglass party—’
‘They were the ones I helped carry out,’ said Pilgrim.
He spoke quite simply.
‘Chips Lovell—’
‘He’d been at the table.’
Moreland looked across at me. Mrs Maclintick took Pilgrim’s arm.
‘How did you get back yourself, Max?’ she asked.
‘I got a lift on one of the fire-engines. Can you imagine?’
‘Here,’ said Moreland. ‘Have some beer.’
Pilgrim took the glass.
‘I’d known Bijou for years,’ he said. ‘Known her when she was a little girl with a plait trying to get a job in the chorus. Wasn’t any good for some reason. Can’t think why, because she had the Theatre in her blood both sides. Do you know, Bijou’s father played Abanazar in Aladdin when my mother was Principal Boy in the same show? Anyway, it all turned out best for Bijou in the end. Did much better as a mannequin than she’d ever have done on the boards. Met richer men, for one thing.’
Dance to the Music of Time, Volume 3 Page 37
