The Fatal Gift

by Alec Waugh

  ‘I would.’

  ‘But it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more. He wanted more of me. He wanted me exclusively. He couldn’t share me. He delivered an ultimatum. It had to be everything or nothing. Who could resist that? I couldn’t.’

  She was echoing Raymond’s words. What woman could have resisted that appeal ? ‘You say that Raymond was still in love,’ she said, ‘and I won’t deny it, in his way he was. But he didn’t put me first. He put Dominica first. He didn’t come back for his own child’s birth. He wasn’t with me at that for me so important time, and when I put up my ultimatum …’

  ‘No man likes being the target of an ultimatum.’

  ‘It depends on what the ultimatum is. A man expects to have said to him, “You must choose between me or that woman.” I said to Raymond, “You’ve got to choose between me and that island.” He chose the island.’

  I made no comment. It was not for me to put forward Raymond’s contention that Whistler’s ultimatum had been inspired not so much by love as by an injured vanity. Raymond might not be right. And anyhow Eileen must be left with her illusions. Perhaps they were not illusions, or perhaps they were illusions that would be turned to truth; that Whistler, once this sacrifice had been made for him, although to Eileen it would not be a sacrifice at all, would become the devoted, concentrated husband that she had not found in Raymond. I lifted my glass, ‘The best of luck to you in every way.’

  Then we started to discuss other plans. ‘Raymond’s being very generous,’ she said. ‘He’s not making any difficulties; but then I never thought he would. He isn’t that kind of person. Bolton’s has another five months of its lease to run, so I’ll stay on there till my decree’s made absolute. During the time we’re waiting, we’ll be looking for a house to buy, but not too seriously. We have to be discreet till we’ve got our decree. The King’s Proctor isn’t quite obsolete, not yet.’

  ‘Will you keep on the set in Albany?’

  ‘That depends on Derrick, but I don’t see the point. If he has to be up alone, he’s got his club. When we come up together, it’s easier to go to a hotel.’

  ‘Have you told the children?’

  ‘Iris, I have. Not Timothy Alexander.’

  ‘How’s Iris taking it?’

  ‘She isn’t worrying. After all, Raymond’s not her father.’

  Whistler would be her third stepfather; perhaps it would be something for her to brag about. Not many of her contemporaries had as many. ‘What about her coming out?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re postponing it for a year. We couldn’t give her the attention that she needs. Next year will be time enough.’

  It was at the end of March that we had that conversation. A few days earlier Hider had occupied Czechoslovakia, yet in London we were all still talking as though 1940 would follow the same pattern as 1938.

  11

  We were very soon to find that we were wrong. September 1939 saw me back again in uniform, with my regiment, and two years later I was posted to the Middle East, to a liaison job with General Spears’ mission to Syria and the Lebanon. The day before I sailed, I lunched with Evelyn, whose commando unit had been heavily engaged at Crete. He had now returned to join another unit.

  ‘You’ll find a lot of old friends in Cairo,’ he informed me.

  ‘I’m expecting to be in Beirut.’

  ‘But you’ll be coming into Cairo fairly often. I can tell you one old friend you’ll find there—Raymond Peronne.’

  I had heard that he was in the Middle East. I had kept up with Eileen. We had lunched a couple of times and she had written to me regularly. Raymond had sailed back for England in that last July. He had seen the West Indians’ final test match at the Oval. We had planned to meet in September, he and I, but by then I was with my regiment in Dorchester. I heard him mentioned once or twice. During the phoney war, a number of men of his age and a little younger were at a loose end in London. They were too old to get into the army: the various ministries were full. They were reluctant to commit themselves to air defence squads. They became rather a nuisance. Betty Askwith was very amusing at their expense. She, like most women, had become quickly caught up in war work; and she was a little exasperated by the young men who would waste her time ringing up to tell her how frustrated they felt at not being able to get war work.

  ‘I try to be sympathetic,’ she said, ‘but it isn’t easy. I just haven’t the time to listen to their problems. A year ago men were complaining that women interfered with their work. Now it’s the other way about. They interfere with ours.’

  Raymond was one of those whom she complained about, but after Dunkirk there was room for everyone. I had heard that he was in Evelyn’s commando.

  ‘How did he do at Crete?’ I asked.

  ‘Very gallantly. He was wounded, in the shoulder, luckily for him. If it had been in the leg, he wouldn’t have got away.’

  ‘Was he badly wounded?’

  ‘Not too seriously. He was in hospital five weeks. There won’t be any serious effects. It’ll probably hurt him later on, when the weather’s wet.’

  ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Nothing very strenuous. In Censorship at the moment. Cairo’s very full of officers who are half employed. It’s a very pleasant place if you have a private income. Hell if you haven’t, and you’re below the rank of Colonel. Far too expensive, and twenty officers to every girl. It’s turning the girls’ heads, most of them. They’ve never been so in demand.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought that that was the kind of life that Raymond would have chosen. Couldn’t he have come back with you?’

  ‘He could have but he didn’t want to. England hasn’t very much to offer him; you’ve heard about Eileen, haven’t you?’

  Yes, I had heard about Eileen. She had not found a house by the time the war started. Whistler had been called up right away. He had been in the Territorials and was a major. Within two months his regiment had been sent out to India to relieve one of the regular battalions. ‘Not much of a honeymoon for them,’ had been Raymond’s comment. ‘It’s the only time,’ Evelyn said, ‘that I’ve heard venom in his voice.’

  That had left Eileen with the set in Albany, which became impossible when the real blitz began. It was unsatisfactory as a base for Iris. The idea of a finishing year in Switzerland was no longer practicable. Timothy Alexander was going to a boarding school. Six was early for that. ‘But how could I have coped with him in London, getting him there in the morning, bringing him back at night; then his trying to do his homework when the alert was on. He had to be got out of London. And what a place to bring him back to for his holidays.’ Thus had she bewailed her situation to me across a lunch table early in November. ‘What would you have done in a position like that?’ she asked.

  How was I to answer that? Everyone had his or her own problems. One did what one could, from day to day. ‘I bet you won’t guess what I decided.’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I remembered that Timothy Alexander was the old man’s grandson. I flung myself on his mercy.’

  ‘You mean to say …’

  ‘That’s what I mean to say.’

  ‘That you and Iris and Timothy Alexander moved into Charminster?’

  ‘Precisely. Margaret’s delighted. She’s got someone to play backgammon with.’

  ‘With Michael coming home for weekend leaves.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  There was a twinkle in her eye. Six years earlier I had thought that though I enjoyed her company I didn’t really like her, but I felt very in tune with her at that moment We had been raised in the same stable, after all.

  That had been when the blitz was at its height. The blitz was over now, but they were still at Charminster. I asked Evelyn what Raymond made of that.

  ‘He mentioned it, of course.’

  ‘Did it worry him?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. He was rather amused by it. What a situation for the old man, after all. His daughter-in-
law with his grandson and his heir. His ex-daughter-in-law with his other grandson and her daughter by an earlier marriage. All of them under the same roof. A comic opera.

  ‘If you had been told three years ago that such a situation could arise, you would not have believed it. It would have been very difficult to make it credible in a novel. Yet step by step it has been one logical solution following on the other.

  ‘And what a coincidence if the grandson who is the heir should want to marry the daughter of the ex-daughter-in-law.’

  ‘Is that likely to happen?’

  ‘It’s not unlikely. Michael spends his leaves at Charminster. They were attracted to each other. They’re the right age for one another. And wartime too.’

  ‘History repeating itself in fact. If it hadn’t been for the first war, Adrian would not have married Margaret.’

  ‘And you say that Raymond is amused by the situation ?’

  ‘I think he welcomes it. It gives him an alibi for not coming back to England. He’d be a nuisance if he did. Which is the last thing he’d want to be. His father won’t be hurt at his not coming home.’

  ‘Does he need an alibi?’

  ‘I think he does. When our commando was disbanded, all the rest came home. We were promised postings to a new unit that was being formed here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that have been in his better interests?’

  ‘I’m not so sure. He had been wounded. He might not have passed for general service. And at his age if you don’t get a posting right away, you’re likely to find yourself in the unemployment pool. The army’s being enlarged so fast. There are all these youngsters passing out of OCTUs. He might have found himself shelved.’

  ‘Isn’t the same thing likely to happen to him in Cairo?’

  ‘The pool isn’t so large, and he’s built up a credit balance of goodwill. Everybody likes him. The right thing is bound to turn up soon.’

  Which is what everyone had always said about Raymond. He was so obviously the right person for the right thing. But that right thing never had turned up, and he was now thirty-seven; a mature age in wartime for a captain. ‘I look forward to seeing him,’ I said.

  I reached Port Said at the end of November. I had a week in Cairo before going north to Beirut.

  Raymond invited me to dinner at the Mohamet Aly Club, with which he enjoyed exchange privileges through White’s. To celebrate our reunion he ordered a bottle of Krug ’28, which was then at its majestic peak.

  It was three years since we had met. I had wondered how those three years, which included two years of soldiering and eighteen months of campaigning, climaxing in a wound, would have effected him. They had not, so it seemed. He had not put on weight. His hair had not thinned, though it had lost a little of its sheen. His wound had not altered the carriage of his shoulders, though I noticed that he often crossed his left arm over his chest, so that he could support it by holding his tunic underneath his arm. He was wearing a well cut uniform of light cream gabardine. Over his left breast pocket was the mauve and white ribbon of the Military Cross. ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t heard about that.’

  ‘It’s recent. Our unit was allotted two DSOs and four MCs; there were so few survivors that I’d have been unlucky not to draw one.’

  He made light of it, but MCs were not lightly earned.

  I asked him about his wound.

  ‘Does it worry you?’

  ‘It would if I were a cricketer; but it doesn’t interfere with my golf. I’m not sure, as a matter of fact, that it hasn’t improved my swing. I’ve had to shorten it. I’m playing to an eleven handicap at Gezira.’

  He was still in Censorship, he told me. ‘And likely to remain in it.’ he said. He confirmed what Evelyn had said about the difficulty of a man of his age who was not a hundred per cent fit getting taken on by an active unit. ‘I’ll probably be a chairborne warrior for the duration.’

  ‘That’s not a fate worse than death.’

  It was my own fate, certainly, but then I was six years older, and six years at that age count as twelve. There had never been any suggestion of my being—with my rank—a combat soldier.

  ‘And Cairo’s the best place to be that,’ he said.

  ‘Provided you’ve a private income.’

  ‘Precisely, and as regards that I’m in luck.’

  I looked about me. The large room with its tall ceilings, high windows and cut glass candelabra was three-quarters full. Half the tables were occupied by men in uniform, nearly all of them with red flannel on their lapels. There were a number of affluent, obese Egyptians. The waiters wore red tarbooshes, red sashes and white gloves. Long-necked bottles steamed in buckets. Was there any place in the world, except the USA, so redolent of luxury at that moment? It was hard to believe that only a few hundred miles away in the Western desert, lives were being risked and lives were being lost. Egypt was a neutral. The rich Cairenes did not mind whether the Italians won or lost. Life here would go on the same.

  Raymond had a second-floor flat near the Gezira Club. ‘I play golf most afternoons,’ he said. ‘I lunch lightly and don’t take a siesta. That keeps me fit. Most of the staff eat too much. Have you seen Francis?’

  Yes, I had seen Francis Moyston. He was a half colonel in the MS branch. He was my age, and looked over fifty. He must have put on fifteen pounds.

  ‘Are you planning to stay on in Censorship?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t see why not. Someone has to do the job.’

  He gave me an outline of his day: awake at six; a morning cup of tea. A two-mile walk to GHQ, pausing on the way for a croissant and a cup of coffee; at his desk by eight. Five hours that kept him occupied, without exacting any pressure.

  ‘It’s not uninteresting.’ he said. ‘I learn what people are thinking, not only here but in other countries. And from the instructions we receive I get a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes. When we’re told that certain things must not be mentioned, we ask ourselves why not.’

  And it was not as though he had to spend the whole morning at his desk. There was usually a conference in some other office. He could find an excuse for going out for a morning coffee. ‘Have you been to Groppi’s yet?’ he asked. ‘There are no cream buns in the world like theirs.’

  At one he would knock off work, and make straight for Gezira. A ham sandwich and a glass of beer. He’d be on the first tee by quarter to two. A swim after his golf, then another three hours in his office. ‘I begin to feel a little office-weary by seven o’clock; the last hours drags, but there’s the evening to look forward to; and that really does amount to something. There’s this club and there’s the Turf Club; they’ve got some excellent tawny port. There are a number of good small restaurants. There are films. There’s a constant going and coming. Everyone in England is trying to get sent out here on a mission—or for a conference—I’ve seen more of my old friends out here during the last year than I should have in three years in England. You see them under the best circumstances too. In London everyone is so grand and busy. Here we have time for one another. After those months in Dominica …’

  He paused, a ruminative expression on his face. Had he felt lonely out there, with the rain beating across the foliage and no companionship but that of the Carib girl who did not speak a word of English?

  ‘What news of Dominica?’

  He laughed. ‘The kind of news you would have expected, but could not have foreseen. You remember that I prophesied a boom in the Caribbean if there was a war?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, that’s what’s happened—in all the islands except Dominica. In the summer of 1940, just after the collapse of France, a committee sat in Whitehall, with that Moyne commission report in front of it, and voted a considerable sum of money, I forget how much it was, but it was quite a sum, to the development of the West Indian colonies. Isn’t that typically British, that with invasion imminent, with no one knowing where anyone would be in a week’s time, a committee was solemnly
sitting down, and deliberating how much could be afforded for the West Indian islands. It has proved very useful; except for poor Dominica, sandwiched between Guadeloupe and Martinique, both of whom accepted the Vichy government. She was completely isolated. I don’t know whether or not the German submarines are refuelling in Fort de France and Pointe a Pitre, but in Barbados and Trinidad the authorities believe they are, and that’s what matters. Ships are afraid of putting in at Roseau. They’d be sitting ducks. There’s another thing, too. I don’t know if you’ve read about the conditions in Martinique and Guadeloupe, but the French admiral who has taken over control in the name of the Vichy government has established a police state. He has maintained the strictest rationing; he has to, of course, with only an occasional ship allowed a safe passage from Bordeaux. He relies on the police and the armed naval and military personnel. He can keep them loyal so long as they are well fed; that means that the population as a whole goes short. Consequently, a number of hungry men escape to Dominica and enlist with the Free French, not out of sympathy with de Gaulle but because they’re hungry. By their terms of service they are entitled to a full meat ration, and the island has to supply that out of their own meagre resources. It takes a long time to get these recruits to Barbados or the Windward Islands. In the meantime Dominica is running out of cattle. There will be a serious meat shortage soon. Typical Dominica, in fact.’

  He said it with a laugh; but he was clearly distressed for the island’s sake. I asked him what his plans were for the future. He shrugged. ‘What plans can be made in wartime? anyhow in a war like this. I live from day to day; and I can’t say that I don’t find it pleasant.’