by Philip Child
“Probably.… I’ve been ashamed of that letter I wrote you from Canada. I was a silly young jingo full of bust and devil at the time. Sorry I let you down, Quentin. I wasn’t such a hell of a good friend.”
“No, you weren’t. Who in blazes were you to refuse your friendship to me because of my opinions? Never mind that, though, I’m glad to see you.”
“Nice of you,” muttered Dan, irritated.… He thought that Quentin was bound to speak of his father — people always did — and he decided to forestall him. “You heard about Father?”
“Yes. Do you want to talk of it?”
“No!”
“Then I won’t. Except to say that it was stupidly unnecessary. People don’t think above their emotions. I don’t.”
“Is that why you are going back to France, Quentin?”
“Yes, partly. I can’t really explain. I found I couldn’t nourish an intellectual loyalty in an emotional vacuum — if that means anything to you. That will do for a reason as well as another.… I found I depended more upon people than I thought.”
“You’ve done the right thing, Quentin.”
Quentin jabbed with his swagger stick at one of the lions at the base of the column and his lips curled bitterly. “I did the wrong thing. Couldn’t help it, though.… Too much for me,” he muttered, “I couldn’t stick being told I was a blasted hero sacrificing myself for the poor dumb driven sheep in France.… Yes, I guess that was it.”
“The other day,” said Dan, “they were changing guard at the palace. The king came out onto a balcony and you could feel everybody’s backbone stiffening. It took me out of myself for a moment. That’s in us; you couldn’t escape from it even if you wanted to.”
“Come on, Dan, let’s walk.… I’ll tell you the difference between you and me. You’ve never accepted death; in the war, for instance. I have. I joined up not expecting to come back. It’s as if I’d died already — gone through the pangs of it. The consequence is your whole mind is spent on proving to yourself you’re not afraid of it. You’re like an ascetic always driving yourself to danger to prove your contempt of death. I’ve proved mine.”
Dan did not like this; it was not the way he saw himself. “Rot. If I were that kind of a hellion I’d apply or transfer to the infantry or the air force, but the fact is I don’t want to; I want to last out the war. Of course, I’m not a coward, either, and if I were in the infantry, I suppose I should stick it through as well as most. I think the best men, those naturally brave like you, went into the infantry. I’m just an average chap.”
“You’re always getting physical and moral courage mixed up.”
“Well, I have physical courage, Quentin; I mean I’m brave enough when I get a military order to obey, or when I know a thing’s a duty. But I think only the best chaps are brave on their own initiative; I mean, going out of their way to do brave things beyond the line of duty. Unless they’ve got to convince themselves that they’re not afraid. I know a gunner subaltern who got shell-shocked , and instead of getting a cushy job at home, he applied for transfer to the light trench mortars — suicide club, you know.”
“Well, when your nerves begin to go phut , don’t you do that, Dan?” He added thoughtfully, “I never seem to understand other people’s problems and they never understand mine.… There’s only one thing I want desperately.”
“What’s that, old man?”
“Peace of mind. A mind that’s not divided.… I shan’t get it now.”
They walked in silence.
II
“It’s donkey’s years,” Dan reflected, “since I’ve talked to a decent girl of my own sort.”
He grinned at himself derisively, and then he thought of Beatrice. She had asked him to look her up in London. Well, why not?
He had her address and telephone number: somewhere near Russell Square. He put two pennies into the telephone and thus bought and paid for fate. Presently, her voice came to him clear and fresh — just as he remembered it. Good to hear a friendly girl’s voice.
“Dan? I’m so glad you called me. Of course I’d like to see you. Come here at three. I’ll be off duty then. We’ll go places and see things. How much longer have you?”
“Two days after today.”
“Look here, I’ll try to wangle a holiday and we’ll play together. Shall we?”
“I should say so!” exclaimed Dan enthusiastically.
He went to the Russell Square address and was shown into the reception room; he wondered what she would be like. He remembered her as a lithe, dark-haired girl whose expression held you aloof with a sort of mocking affection.
While he was trying to recapture his image of her, she took him by surprise, standing in the doorway smiling at him.… The same, and yet different, though perhaps the change was in his own way of looking at her. She was not fluffily dressed. He saw at once that that would not have suited her best. She had the kind of personality that made you realize instantly that she was an individual as well as a woman. She was wearing a tailor-made suit which made sex less a matter of costume and more of personality. It was in her eyes looking at him and in her smile, which was frankly welcoming. She was feminine, all right.
Under his admiration, she blushed faintly but without the least awkwardness. One could not imagine her ungraceful.
“We’ve both changed since last we met, Dan. But let’s pretend we have not changed a bit.”
They ordered tea in a dim place with divans. She took off a glove and patted her hair, then she bent over the rite of tea. She saw that he was confused with pleasure and became instantly very self-possessed and sisterly.
She passed him a cup of tea; clever, small hands she had. It was delightful to watch her smiling calmly over the rim of a teacup, coolly mistress of herself. It was enough simply to listen to her clear voice. Nice to hear a girl’s voice that sounded well-bred and young.…
Beatrice put down her teacup and, opening her purse, took out a bright new penny. This she presented to Dan and smiled at him teasingly. “I’ve asked you a question twice, sir! And you simply sit looking at me like a cat before a jar of cream.… Now I’ve paid for your thoughts.”
He pulled himself together. “I was thinking that one ought not to see too much beauty all at once after fasting. It goes to one’s head.”
Beatrice blushed. “You know, Dan, you aren’t as easy to manage as you used to be. You take the bit in your teeth.”
“First I’m a cat and now I’m a horse. I’m not as easy to manage because now I know what direction I want to go in.”
They laughed.
“Seriously, though, Beatrice —”
“No, let’s not be serious. We’ve got two days together, if you like —”
“If I like!”
“And for two days let’s not be serious once. You can flirt a little, though, if you want to. What would you do if you had ten thousand pounds and the power of Harun al-Rashid to go anywhere in London and do anything you wanted?”
“Advertise in the agony column for Scheherazade, first of all. No, I wouldn’t. You’d do. You be Scheherazade and tell me a story, and mind you amuse me or you’ll lose your head.… Maybe I’ll lose mine if you do.”
“If I lose my head?”
“No, if you amuse me.”
“You flirt nicely, I think. You know the rules.”
“What are the rules?”
“To show that you know you are talking to a person who might be dangerous to you. To pretend you’re risking that danger — but not really to risk it.”
“Well, I am in great danger, and I’m trying to lead you into it.”
They chattered nonsense and their spirits rose. It was fun discovering under the trite phrases of conversation what Beatrice was really like, and it was fun hinting what you were really like yourself without reve
aling too much too quickly.
“Now then, Beatrice, what shall we do?”
She stood up lithely and her eyes sparkled. “Let’s just sally forth. We’re sure to have an adventure.”
They went for a ride on top of a bus; then walked aimlessly from Marble Arch to Regent Street, the Haymarket and Trafalgar Square. In front of the National Gallery, they stopped to look at some chalk drawing on the pavement over which knelt the artist, a shabby old man with a whimsical eye. He stood up and pointed to a highly coloured picture of a sailor on a battleship engaged in the most unsailorly act of waving his cap at a female ashore; her arms were stretched out toward the ship. Caption: Farewell, my true love. “That there,” said the old man, “is my sheff doover. There ain’t a thing in the National Gallery that’s got the feeling, as you might say, that that there picture’s got. Them pictures in there are all dressed up for a party, like, if you know what I mean. But this ’ere picture is the real thing. It’s got the war in it, see? Worth a tanner to you, sir?”
“A shilling at least. Here you are. Did he come back to her afterwards?”
“Sir?”
“The man and the girl.… Did he come through the war all right?”
“Well, sir, that there is a question to be sure. Funny you should ask that. I’ve often wondered myself, that I ’ave. ’Oo knows? That’s art for you, sir. You don’t know and yet you know. See?”
“The answer,” said Beatrice in a voice that had undertones, “is much simpler than all that. He did not come through all right.”
They walked on. For a moment or two Beatrice seemed depressed, then she became gay again.
“Do you know,” said Dan, “that I really feel extremely friendly to everybody we pass by. And the funny thing is that this morning, I almost hated people. You’re good for me, Beatrice.”
“You’ve been good for me, too. Now what shall we do?”
“Dinner. Then a show, if you feel like one.”
“Where shall we go for dinner?”
“Some place in Soho? No! A plague on French cooking. Let’s go to the Criterion.”
They went to that sumptuous restaurant, and Dan managed to get a good table where they could see if they wanted to but could talk without being overheard.
“Well, here we are, Beatrice, dining together, and I’ve known you for a thousand years. When you’ve known a person that long you can be serious.”
She smiled to herself as if at some secret kept from him. “What shall we be serious about, then?”
“About something really interesting. Let’s not waste time.”
Beatrice waved her hand flippantly: “Why not? Let’s waste it. I hate it when you can’t waste it.”
“Then let’s waste it nicely. Let’s talk about you and me.”
She smiled a little defensively. “Of course. But we have been.”
“No, only about what we’ve been doing. First we talked about me, then you. Now let’s talk about us both together.” He lifted his wine glass. “To our being friends, Beatrice, and to being a little in love besides.”
She hesitated, then drank. “Yes — just a little. Not too much. You’ll be careful we aren’t too much?”
“If you’re not in love, the only thing left is to talk about being in love, don’t you think?”
Beatrice became suddenly serious. “Dan, I’ve changed a lot since you knew me.”
“You’re more beautiful. But that’s simply because I’ve changed, not you.”
She sighed and an unbidden thought came to her: Why do I want to run my fingers through his hair? She said earnestly: “I really have changed. The war, of course. It cheated me and I’d like to cheat it back. I’m not at all the sort of person you think I am. I’m reckless and quite cynical.”
“You, Beatrice? Not you!”
“Yes, I am.” She bent over her plate. “What are we talking about? One would think we were really understanding each other!”
“We are.… What I used to like most about you was your downrightness. I used to think you’ve no nonsense about you. What a fool I was.”
She said a little constrainedly: “And now I have nonsense about me?”
“Anyway, I like it!”
Their eyes met and she smiled. Then, suddenly, she grew grave. “Dan, promise me something.”
“Anything you like.”
“If you ever fall in love, don’t wait till after the war.”
“I won’t.”
“Because you’ll regret it — or she will, if you do.”
Dan nodded reflectively. “All the same, when I get married I mean it to be for keeps.”
“Yes, of course, but —”
“Well, I mean this mess everybody is in is pretty beastly.” Dan’s expression had sobered, and for a moment he looked beyond her. “Sometimes under a strafe, you know … people screaming — that sort of thing.… Sorry, Beatrice, I won’t talk about that. But sometimes you have a feeling that the whole world has turned putrid and you with it, and as if — it’s hard to put it into words — as if the powers that be — if there are any — were laughing at you out of the mouth of a big gun. It does things to some people. It would be easy to go rotten and cynical. Well, I don’t want to. I think falling in love should be a little sanity you could hang on to in the mess. I mean, you can say to yourself, ‘Anyhow, there’s love in the world; that’s not rotten.’ And that would be decent if you made it so. Not just animal, you see. It’s to bring life.… Beatrice, I’ve hurt you!”
She bit her lip. “It’s all right, Dan. It’s just that what you said made things hurt again.” Her eyes softened and became maternal. “Don’t you suppose I’ve felt that, too?” She added in a low voice: “It is beastly. I, too, used to think love was to bring life. But war is to bring death, Dan. There’s no time for life these days.”
“I mean to get it somehow. And so must you.”
But she simply shook her head. After a moment she said: “You’ve made me think, though … that there are some kinds of fool I won’t be.”
Though he urged her, she would not explain what she meant. Finally, she said: “Are you ever afraid of anything?”
“Of course. Aren’t you?”
“Fear of death, Dan?” she asked gently.
“No. Except indirectly, perhaps. No more than anyone else. After all, that’s something you can’t help, so you don’t have to think of it much. And besides, everyone is in the same boat.”
“Of what, then?”
“Oh, of myself mostly.”
“So am I, Dan.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it, how easily you and I can tell each other things. I couldn’t have said that to anyone else. I feel as if I really understand you.”
“No, you don’t really. You’re sweet, though.… Dan, the champagne is wasted if we talk about things like these. Let’s just enjoy life now. Let’s be crazy and reckless and gay. Rome can do its silly old burning without us for two days.”
They went to Arlette for a while and then to Zig-Zag! at the Hippodrome, which, though it wasn’t very good, was gay and had an acceptable chorus who came down gangways into the pit carrying fishing poles with which they angled for unattached subalterns.
Then they went to a place where they could dance.
“Do you remember the last time we danced together, Beatrice?” She drew in a quick breath. Pain. Clumsy of him. “Yes. At college, at the Lotus Club. It was when I was first engaged. I remember telling you how settled and sure of my own self it made me feel.”
Not knowing what to say, Dan ventured upon a platitude: “Life goes on, Beatrice.”
“Does it? I don’t feel that it does. I don’t want it to.… May I ask you a question, Dan?”
“Of course.”
“Do you still love Cynthia
?”
He stiffened, then smiled slowly and shook his head. “Do you know I don’t anymore, though I’ve only realized that — lately. That was springtime love. You’re not really in love until you need a person.”
“So you’ve found that out.”
The room was dark except for a kaleidoscope whirling coloured gems over the uplifted faces of the dancers. The orchestra brooded and throbbed and swept over the curving wave of the waltz, making a languid shallop of rhythm which floated the couples onto a dim sea. With her it is beautiful again. It is poetry again. Does she feel it too? But she must!
They went home in Beatrice’s car, which she kept parked in a public garage. She backed it out and got the fender caught. “Loud cheers,” thought Dan, secretly pleased. In certain moods she seemed all too competent and sure of herself to prosper male vanity. They drove home humming a snatch from Arlette.
I love — her — emphatic’ly,
But — quite — dip — lomatic’ly,
That — is — the only way.
But was it indeed? … They put the car into a garage and walked to her house. Dan thought of walking back to his hotel alone; the thought revealed a disturbing and joyful fact to him. “I am in love with Beatrice,” he thought.
He said: “Do you like saying good night? I loathe it.”
She caught her breath, a little startled.
“I want to kiss you, Beatrice, instead.”
She said nothing. He put his arms about her and kissed her lips. She shivered.
“Do you mind?”
“I meant you to from the first.… Goodbye, Dan.”
He could not read her expression, but some secret reserve in her manner alarmed him. “Don’t say ‘goodbye.’ Just ‘good night.’”
But for some reason she would not say it.
“This isn’t going to be enough, Beatrice. Something has happened to us.”
Pain shadowed her face and, for an instant, she closed her eyes. “Dan, it must be enough.… Unless —”
“Unless what, Beatrice?”
