by Alec Waugh
He had them puzzled. He had been here for three months. He had been cordial, gracious, but he had shown no preference.
“I suppose we shall have to ask him.”
“I suppose we shall.”
It was the conclusion to which they were invariably forced when they planned a party. This lamentable lack of men.
“What about Grainger Morris?” Jocelyn asked. “He and Euan Templeton know each other.”
Again there was a pause. Each knew exactly what was in the others’ minds. Color was not a topic that they discussed. It was a point on which they were subject to their parents’ ruling. They talked in shorthand. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t ask him to a beach party,” Mavis said.
“I don’t see either.”
“Perhaps it would be better if we asked Euan to ask him. We could say we don’t know Grainger very well.”
“We might do that.”
They could not ask him to the tennis club. He could not ask them to the Aquatic. They could not ask him to their houses without asking their parents which they would not want to do, but there was something conveniently noncommittal about a picnic party on a neutral beach. “It’s all very silly,” Doris said.
They nodded in agreement. They did not say what it was they all thought silly. But it was, each one conceded, ridiculous in a high degree.
From his station at the bar, Maxwell Fleury could see his wife’s face in profile. He watched her as she gathered up her hand, as she sorted out the suits, as she played the cards. No change of expression crossed her face. He could not tell if she was winning or if she was losing, if she was picking up good hands or bad. How could he, how could anyone, tell what she was thinking? Was she, even as she played her hand, reliving that morning hour with the man who had smoked a Turkish cigarette in his father’s drawing room? Who had it been?
He rested the back of his hand against his head. He had been through too much today. He had come into town the night before so that he and his father could go over the estate accounts. The price of copra was going up, but the profits remained stationary. No one could understand it, there had to be a check up. But as so often happens on a first night in town he had taken too many swizzles at the club. He had woken in no mood for figures. He had talked to his father of contributory factors, the atmosphere of impending change under the influence of this new Governor, with upstarts like David Boyeur threatening you with strikes, with the peasants robbing you and the police backing them. His father had listened in his courteous patient way. “Yes,” he had said. “Yes, yes,” and then he had asked questions that had shown very clearly that he was not interested in vague theories, but was concerned with the tangible entries of a balance sheet.
Pestered by precise questions, with his head aching, how could he provide the answers that would satisfy his father. His father nodded, “I see,” he had said, “I see.” But he had not seen. How could he when the answers were so nebulous? He holds me to blame, naturally, and no doubt he’s right. A black mood of mingled self-pity and self-contempt was on him. It was his fault that the estate was running at a loss. What good was he at anything? He couldn’t even make his own wife love him. Was it his fault though? What chance had he ever had? He’d been brought out here at the age of four, sent to school with a lot of colored brats whom he’d so despised that he couldn’t be bothered to set himself in competition with them. The colored teachers had exaggerated his mistakes; anxious to appear superior to a white boy. No one had taken any interest in him. No one had inspired him. His father had always said, “Don’t worry. We’ll be going back to England soon. You’ll find it an advantage then to have seen something of the world.”
He had tried to be patient when he had been forced to listen to accounts of how well his brother was doing, first at Eton, afterwards at Oxford. It was Arthur, Arthur, Arthur all the time. That was all his father cared about, how the elder son, the apple of his eye, was doing.
He had tried to be patient. One day he’d show them. He’d counted the months till he could go to Eton. September 1940. That’s when his chance would come. September 1940, indeed. He laughed bitterly, ruefully. When that day had come, who was bothering about him. The war was all that mattered; and with the Caribbean infested with submarines it had been impossible to send him even to Barbados. He’d had to make do with the high school here. No wonder people compared him to his disadvantage with his family.
He knew what people said about him. “Fancy Julian Fleury having a son like that.” Everyone admired his father. At the club, at every party, his father was the center of a group, not only of his contemporaries, but the younger people. They asked his advice. They listened to his anecdotes. Everyone kept telling him how marvelous his father was. Well, and why shouldn’t he be? He had had every chance, had money spent on him, been sent to the best school, allowed to meet the most amusing people. No wonder his father was thought marvelous; no wonder Arthur had been too. Arthur had had every break: stayed on in England, gone to Eton. He hadn’t been dragged up in this dreary island, taught by a half-caste in a class of nigger boys; in retrospect Arthur was a hero, naturally: but even when he was a schoolboy, when he had been an undergraduate, glowing reports about him had come back to Santa Marta, how charming he was, how modestly he bore his successes. The record of his achievements stood in black and white.
In comparison what had he to offer. Nothing. Nothing. He had done nothing; he was nothing. He had no polish, no real education. He had made no friends because he had not met the kind of man with whom he could be friends. He had been robbed of his inheritance. No wonder the profits dropped; no wonder Sylvia despised him.
At his side the familiar topics were being discussed: the price of copra, sugar, cocoa: the prospects of the West Indian cricketers beating the M.C.C., the political situation, the coming elections, the chances of West Indian Federation. Carson was holding forth.
“I’m not in a position to judge, I know. I’ve only been here three years. But the newcomer sees things with new eyes. What I’m wondering is this. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you tried playing these fellows at their own game?”
He spoke with a thick, full voice, slowly articulating every syllable. There were those who found him pompous, but to Maxwell he was a hero. He was everything that Maxwell wished he was himself. He admired Carson’s county accent, the way he wore his clothes, the way in which he held an audience: to have all these men listening to him, and to be able to talk so slowly, to have the confidence that no one would interrupt.
“Why don’t more of you fellows go into politics yourselves,” he was continuing. “Until now you’ve had a majority in the Leg. Co. through nominated members, but you won’t much longer from what I hear; the elected members will be outnumbering you; why don’t you take up the challenge, fight these fellows at the polls, show the voters that you are cleverer than their Boyeurs.”
He paused. He looked round the circle. His eye fell on Maxwell. “A young chap like you now. Why don’t you stand in your own district. Your name means a lot there. You’d probably get in.”
Maxwell flushed, flattered and excited at being thus singled out by a man he so much admired, and before all these others. The idea fired his brain. Why shouldn’t he? Why in hell’s name shouldn’t he? He was a Fleury, wasn’t he? This was his chance to show them.
2
Most of the guests at the party were distributed between the three clubs and the two hotels. Not all however.
At the Carlton cinema David Boyeur and Margot Seaton were about to watch from the most expensive seats the first showing in Santa Marta of Christopher Columbus. There were still five minutes to pass before the picture started. Boyeur was in high spirits. He had been made much of at the party. The Governor had shown him honor. The American editor had listened to his views. He had noticed Grainger Morris talking to two white girls. He had joined the group and the girls had been polite; no edging away. A triumphant evening.
He had also felt proud of Margot. He had kept his eye o
n her, and her poise had pleased him. She had never looked lost. She had never been unattended. He had been alarmed when she had called his bluff. He need not have been. She could hold her own.
“If anyone had told me that first evening I danced with you at Carnival that within three years you’d be a guest at Government House, I’d have roared with laughter.”
“Would you. I shouldn’t have.”
“What?”
“Would you have been surprised if you had been told then that you’d be there today?”
“Heavens no, I’ve always known that I’d be in the big time soon.”
“Maybe I’ve known it too, about myself.”
“You?” He stared at her. She still looked to him the child who at that first dance had set his every sense alight. She was smiling, ironically.
“I was never quite as simple as you thought,” she said.
He looked at her thoughtfully. Perhaps she hadn’t been. Perhaps that was why she had laid so firm a hold on him, a hold he had not resented, that he had made no attempt to break. He saw her with new eyes. Not simply as a plaything to amuse his leisure. She could be more than that; a credit to him; an asset in his career. They’d make a good team, he and she. Why hadn’t he realized that before?
“This is a strange place to be saying it,” he said. “But I think we should be getting married soon.”
He had expected to hear a gasp of surprised delight. He did not. She turned her head slowly and looked him in the face.
“I’ve never thought of you in terms of marriage,” she replied.
“Then you can start thinking now.”
She shook her head. “That wouldn’t be at all a good idea.”
“Now listen …”
The lights went off and the room was filled with the noise of music. A series of advertisements was flashed upon the screen. On all sides of them the audience chattered on with unabated animation. Boyeur alone was speechless. To have been turned down: for David Boyeur to have been rejected, and by a girl with whom he had been going steadily for thirty months! It was unthinkable. She must be joking.
He took her hand. It lay limp in his; there was no electricity in her fingers; they might not have belonged to her. An advertisement of a thermos flask appeared on the screen.
“I’ve thought of getting one of those,” she said.
The subject of their marriage might never have been brought up. He felt indignant. She couldn’t get away with this. He moved her hand sideways onto her lap. He pressed the back of his hand against her leg; she made no movement. He loosed his hold upon her fingers and let the palm of his hand rest upon her knee. He began to stroke her leg.
“Stop that,” she said.
He took no notice. His touch became more firm. He’d teach her. He’d subjugate her, through her senses; as he had before. She might be able to outtalk him, but here he held the mastery. His hand moved upward.
“If you don’t stop that, I’ll leave.”
Again he took no notice. His hand advanced. Its pressure tightened.
“Very well.”
It happened so quickly that he did not realize that it was happening. She was on her feet: they were two seats from the aisle. Without fuss or hurry, she edged past the couple in her way. At her normal slow pace of walking, she left the hall.
His eyes followed her through the dusk. It was incredible. Had many people noticed her? His vanity prevented him from hurrying after her. He could not face a scene. David Boyeur quarreling in public with his girl friend; he would look ridiculous. There was nothing for him to do but to sit on and pretend nothing had happened. He would tell anyone who made inquiries that she had a headache.
3
Mr. Romer’s liner sailed at half-past nine. The Governor had urged him to stay on to dinner, but he had refused. He had a sense of timing. It would be a hurried, interrupted meal; far better to leave in the warm afterglow of a cocktail party. Templeton drove him to the dock, where the government launch was waiting. The engineer saluted.
“I’m very sorry sir, something the matter with the engine. Nothing serious; it won’t take a minute.”
“Perhaps we had better take a boat.”
“Oh no, sir, I assure you. Two minutes at the most.”
They stood on the dock, Romer, Templeton, and Euan, while the sailor fiddled with the engine.
“A watched pot never boils,” said Templeton.
Silence supervened. During the drive down the hill they had said all they had to say. Romer’s timing was so exact that he was now speechless. The silence became awkward.
“This reminds me of an occasion …” Templeton began.
As he repeated the anecdote, he remembered the advice given him at the staff college many years ago. “The press is a great nuisance but it exists and you must co-operate; it can do you a great deal of damage: if you are in any doubt as to how much to tell, tell too much rather than too little. Journalists have chips upon their shoulders. They are grateful to the man who trusts them.” Why not tell this fellow the advice he had been given by the Minister, take him into his confidence, tell him that he’d probably be implementing this new constitution in a week or two? It might pay a dividend.
“I’ve been most interested in your reactions to all you’ve seen today,” he started. “The Caribbean is as much an American as a British problem. You look on it from a different angle, in terms of the Monroe Doctrine: that’s why—” But at that point the engine sputtered into life, and the engineer saluted.
“That’s that,” said Templeton as the launch sped across the harbor to the anchored liner. He looked at his son thoughtfully. It was nearly two years since they had met. Euan had then been a freshly gazetted subaltern, on his overseas leave, full of inquiries about the Middle East. He had barely ceased to be a schoolboy. Now he was a man. He had exercised authority, assumed responsibility, faced danger. He must be a different person, yet he looked the same. I must remember that, the Governor warned himself. I mustn’t treat him as a schoolboy.
“What did you make of it?” he asked.
“Fine. I enjoyed it.”
“How did they strike you?”
“They were all very friendly.”
“You don’t think you’ll be bored here?”
“Heavens, no!”
“I’m kept pretty hard at work. You’ll have to rely on your own devices.”
“I shan’t find that difficult.”
Euan said it with a smile; as though he were smiling to himself, at his own thoughts. What were those thoughts, his father asked himself? What had he himself felt when he was twenty-one? It was hard to put oneself back. Besides, his own case had been different. It had been in wartime. For him those years had been cut up into arbitrary divisions; his leaves, his periods in the line; he’d been wounded twice: there had been the weeks in hospitals, then the periods of recuperation at the depot. He had never had a holiday. What would he have wanted if he had? The same things, presumably, that he had wanted on his leaves—cricket and a girl to take out dancing. Euan probably wasn’t so very different.
“Which of the girls did you find the most attractive?” he inquired.
“I’ll be able to answer that question better tomorrow evening. Jocelyn Fleury’s fixing up a bathing party.”
“You should enjoy that.”
The car swung round into the Government House courtyard.
“Dinner’s at eight; we won’t bother to change. What sort of cocktail would you like?”
“Shall we be having wine at dinner?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll wait till then.”
“A sensible decision.”
Archer was waiting in the hallway. “Any instructions, sir?”
“No, no, thank you. The party went very well I thought.”
“I’m glad you did, sir. I think Mr. Romer saw everyone he needed to.”
“Splendid. You managed very well. Euan and I won’t be having cocktails, but help yourself to
anything you’d like.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you very much.”
It would be much pleasanter, Archer thought, now that young Templeton was here and there’d be no more tête-à-tête dinners with H.E. His employer on the other hand was thinking, Dinner à trois. I wonder how much I really shall see of Euan during these six months.
4
The dinner à trois was on the whole a cheerful one. It was nearly finished when Euan was summoned to the telephone.
“You won’t remember who I am,” a feminine voice with a slight West Indian accent was informing him, “but you met me this afternoon. I was wearing a hat that wasn’t really a hat at all; a posy of sham flowers kept in place by invisible elastic.”
“I remember it very well. You were wearing a mauve scarf and a wide belt matching it and your name’s Mavis Norman.”
“Now I am flattered.”
“But we talked for at least four minutes.”
“There are several four-minute sessions in an hour; I’m flattered, very, and it makes what I was going to ask easier. It’s about Grainger Morris; you’re good friends, aren’t you?”
“You bet we are.”
“That’s what we thought. The point is this: we’d like to ask him to this bathing party, but we don’t know him very well, he might think us forward, we wondered if you wouldn’t ask him for us. It might be better if the invitation came from you.”
“I’d be delighted to.”
“Good. You fix it up with him and we’ll rendezvous at four at the Continental.”
She rang off so quickly that he had not time to realize he was surprised.
“Wasn’t that rather odd?” he asked his father. “Why didn’t Jocelyn ring him up direct, or failing that why didn’t she ring me up? It’s her party. I don’t see why Mavis Norman should be calling me.”
His father smiled. He could think of at least one reason. It was a group decision of the girls; they wanted to disarm their parents with the half lie that Euan had invited Grainger. They would also be more punctilious with a colored man than they would be with a white, they would be afraid of “giving him ideas,” so they’d tossed as to who should take on the chore. The issue turned, he was very sure, on color, but he did not want to suggest that to his son. Euan would have a far better time in Santa Marta if he did not become color conscious. Moreover he might be wrong and he did not want to invite the criticism that he saw everything in terms of color.
