by John Masters
She shed her garments one by one, with a smile of conscious pride,
Till at last she stood in her womanhood, and they saw the Great Divide.
They laid her down on a table top where someone had left a glass
She wriggled her tits and smashed it to bits between the cheeks of her arse.
The recitation marched relentlessly on to its ordained end – the complete discomfiture of Dead Eye Dick and Mexican Pete by the iron lady, Esquimo Nell.
Coward stood up, with a final glissade up and down the keyboard. The audience was on its feet, shouting ‘Encore, encore!’, stamping, yelling, gasping with laughter, except for some Frenchmen who had not understood a word.
Coward bowed and raised his hand – ‘No encore, I’m afraid. I can’t write another till tomorrow.’ He stepped down and returned to their table. There, while they stood and applauded him, he looked at his watch – ‘Time for my beddy byes. Work tomorrow, early … ten o’clock. Are you coming, Tom?’
Florinda said, ‘I have to go, too. You needn’t see me to the hotel, Billy.’
‘I will, though,’ Bidford said.
Guy sat, his shoulders hunched, staring at the tablecloth. The little band was back, playing. The dance floor was crowded. Billy was taking Florinda to her hotel – their hotel. He was alone at the table with Maria.
He said thickly, ‘More champagne, Maria?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘And not for you, either … I’m really tired, Guy. And I have to give that baby a feed, or I’ll burst. Let’s go back to the Meurice now. Please.’
‘I’ll take you,’ he mumbled, ‘then … I’ll come back here … won’t be able to sleep.’
‘Champagne won’t help.’
After a time he said, ‘I know.’
A little later he said, ‘Home, James. I might as well lie awake in a comfortable bed as suffocate in this tobacco smoke. Come on.’
Fletcher Gorse swung round after the rocketing, drumming grouse and fired, first the left barrel and then the right. Both grouse arched into the heather with audible thumps, feathers flying. ‘Good shot, sir!’ the loader behind him cried, and on the other side, ‘Good shot!’ his wife Betty cried.
They were part of a shooting party at Lord Keighley’s estate on the edge of the Yorkshire moors – six men and their ladies; but none of the latter, it was understood in the invitation, would do any shooting. Lady Keighley didn’t like shooting; her hobby was collecting literary lions, and she had had a great tussle with her husband to be allowed to invite Fletcher, still the rage of literary London. The viscount had given in grudgingly, grumbling, ‘Ruddy long-haired johnny, I expect …’
‘His hair’s a perfectly resonable length, as you would have seen if you ever read the magazines.’
The viscount had grunted, ‘And can’t shoot for toffee.’
‘Probably not. But you can afford to have one poor shot with the others you have invited.’
But Fletcher had outdone all but one of the other men, Sir John Haycraft, reputed to be one of the half-dozen best shots in England; and his loader, one of the viscount’s gamekeepers, had quickly changed his tone from suspicious scorn, at the sight of Fletcher’s cheap guns, recently bought, to respectful admiration, going so far as to say, ‘If you had as much practice as Sir John … and had his guns … you’d be the best in England, sir.’
Fletcher threw over his shoulder – ‘Don’t call me “sir”… I’m a poet, not a ruddy gent.’
The keeper grinned at Betty, and said nothing, while Fletcher took down another brace of grouse with another right and left. Then there was a pause while the beaters took up a new line, and Fletcher said, ‘I like this better than watching the insurance blokes at Lloyds … even though they did give us a damn good lunch … And do we have to go to that mine on Monday? Haven’t I learned enough for this month?’
‘No,’ Betty said firmly. ‘It’s all arranged and they’ll be very disappointed if you don’t go. And on Wednesday to Grimsby, and out in a trawler for a week.’
‘What’ll I do without a woman for seven days?’ he said. The loader tried to keep his face straight. Betty said coolly, ‘Practise continence … Poor darling … but when you come back, we’ll have a month together in Wolverhampton.’
‘That’s going to be bloody hell,’ Fletcher said. ‘Smoke, machines, noise … everything I can’t stand, and never have been able to … everything Granddad taught me was bad.’
She said patiently, ‘You can not understand your own country unless you see how its people live. There are far more men and women in heavy industry than there are in farming, you know. Their life is so different from what yours used to be that you can’t imagine it. You have to go and live it.’
The loader said, ‘The beaters are ready again … The birds’ll start breaking out of their cover in a couple of minutes.’
‘Thanks … Can I rest in October then?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Parliament. Coutts Bank. The Stock Exchange. And Captain Kellaway’s taking you round the art galleries most of that month … And there are the Queen’s Hall concerts.… And you ought to think again whether you shouldn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge for a year.’
Fletcher stood up off the shooting seat and swung at two grouse, fired: got one … then a right and a left … missed one clean … another right and left … two singletons … three more … firing the gun, passing it back without looking, receiving the other ready loaded, all as smooth as though he’d been doing just this all his life, in just this manner.
He’s a genius, Betty thought comfortably: a lover as strong as a stallion and as tender as a dove; swimming up in the world with the ease of a fish, looking into the experience of others, seeing, feeling, recording, remembering … and everything one day to flow out again in strong, lovely rivers of poetry.
It was a warm, dry, sunny Sunday near the middle of the month and Helen Rowland was riding with David Toledano in Hyde Park, walking their horses now along the dusty riding track between the Serpentine and Knightsbridge Barracks. Ahead of them two Corporals of Horse in undress uniform were exercising their horses. The spring’s ducklings were almost fully grown and no longer trailed behind their mothers in anxious little flotillas, but wandered off in ones and twos, looking for food.
David said, ‘What news from Ethel?’
Helen said, ‘She’s very happy in Cologne, but not pregnant. It isn’t as easy for some women to get pregnant as it is for others.’
David said nothing. They had never discussed the intimate details of her affair with Boy Rowland but it was clear from the circumstances that they could not have made love more than three or four times. Helen said, ‘This dust is making me cough, David. Let’s get ahead of the soldiers.’
She eased the bay mare she was riding into a trot, posting comfortably with her stride; and David followed suit on his big chestnut gelding – both horses hired from the Watkins’ livery stable.
David said, ‘Any better luck with the Boutique?’
They passed the Corporals of Horse and Helen said, ‘No. Worse … This is a very dead season, with so many fashionable women in Yorkshire or Scotland, or at Cowes … I miss Ethel, too, though I’ve got a bright girl of about twenty to help … but none of that explains it all. I’ve done everything you advised – about economising, keeping better books, watching the inventory, but it isn’t enough.’ They eased back on the reins together, bringing the two horses down to a sedate walk. The dust rose in little puffs from their hoofs, but the soldiers were far back, and would not suffer from it.
Helen continued, ‘It’s a knack … a flair … Florinda could open a boutique tomorrow, and have it clearing fifty pounds a day by next month. She is really excited by clothes, hats, shoes, bags. She could not only follow fashion, but lead it. She has the looks, and …’
‘So do you,’ David said quietly.
‘Oh, I look all right,’ she said, ‘but I don’t have the proper feelings in here.’ She raised her free right hand and
momentarily tapped her bosom. ‘There’s no one close. Let’s open up their lungs … and ours.’
She touched the mare’s flanks with the heels of her riding boots – she was not wearing spurs – and the well-trained animal stretched into an easy canter, and David’s gelding followed suit. As the hoofs bit deeper into the dust little clods of hard earth flew back, and the dust lay in a trail two feet above the ground for a hundred yards behind them. David thought, the earth’s a little hard for this … don’t want to damage the beasts’ hoofs. But Helen knew her horseflesh and was holding the pace to a very gentle canter. They rode on, not talking, easing comfortably back and forth in the hunting saddles, both tall – Helen the picture of English beauty with her deep blue eyes and fair skin, David like some warrior Saracen, olive-skinned, dark-eyed, a powerful man on a powerful horse.
Having reached the end of the Row, they slowed to a trot, turned, and started back eastwards.
Helen said, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can hang on – with the Boutique. We’re simply not making enough money. The debts are piling up … nothing serious yet, but I don’t like any debts.’
After a while David said, ‘I would be happy if you would let me pay off the debts, at least. How much are they?’
‘Oh, a little over three hundred pounds, so far. But I can settle them easily. I have jewellery worth several thousand.’
David thought, at least she didn’t react with horror to the very idea that I should help her. She was a very sensible and practical woman, for all her rank.
She said, ‘Mummy knows we’re in trouble. She says she can get a job for me managing one of Lord Walstone’s HUSL stores … probably not in London, but that wouldn’t bother me, if …’
‘If what?’
‘If I hankered after that sort of life. I don’t … I ought to go back to High Staining … well, to a farm. That’s what I really like. That’s what I really want to do.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ He hesitated, then said firmly, ‘I would be honoured to get you started. I know you’re a good farmer … Guy’s told me often enough. I’d get my money back. I’d really like to do it. And I hope you wouldn’t mind if I came down to look at my investment now and then … but I’d stay in the nearest pub, of course.’
She said, ‘I wish I could accept your offer, David, but …’
This time the silence was much longer, until finally he said gently, ‘Is it because your parents disapprove of your seeing me?’
She said, ‘Mummy doesn’t mind. She approves, in fact. But Daddy … he hates Jews. He always has. Heaven knows who taught him to … his father, I suppose. Though he doesn’t really know anything about Jews. But that’s not really it. I couldn’t take that much money from you, David.’
Now, he thought, I should say, Would you take it if you were my wife? He should say, Will you marry me? Then all her problems would be solved; but it was not yet quite time. Her father’s disapproval mattered to her, and that was proper. His own father regarded Gentiles like an infectious disease, but he was his father. He, too, might have to be disregarded … some day. David was doing his best to see a potential wife in the parade of beautiful young women his father and sister were conjuring up out of all the great British Sephardic families; but so far none had made a dent in his growing conviction that Helen Rowland was the only woman he could marry. And then, when he did, he would have to spend years erasing the memory of Boy Rowland from her mind. Ah, that was wrong. She would not, and should not, forget that love. Somehow she must be made to accept his own love as a complement and partner to it … perhaps, for a start, if he became a real father to young Boy, fruit of the old love.
The four men were met in the big room of the Secretary of State for War and Air, in the War Office, on Whitehall, opposite the pale grey stone arches of the Horse Guards. The Secretary, the Right Honourable Winston Spencer Churchill, was standing in the window, looking out at the resplendent breastplates of the two mounted troopers of the Life Guards on sentry duty in the high boxes to either side of the gate. They were well nicknamed The Tins, he thought; for the sun was reflecting the glitter of one cuirass straight into his eyes. He turned back to face the others, seated round the table – and said, ‘The plain fact is that Admiral Kolchak is being beaten: the Bolsheviks have had him on the run for the last two months and his men are deserting in droves. There is no practical possibility of saving him unless we – the Allies – send troops … a great many of them, with all necessary support – tanks, artillery, aircraft, engineers, experienced commanders, a proper train of supply … which means all-out war. Now, what are your attitudes?’ He looked straight at Lord Swanwick.
The earl said, ‘We’ve got to beat the swine … damned murderers … nothing will be safe if they are allowed to survive … We’ll have Bolshevism here … they’ll hang the King and the Prince of Wales … shoot the Queen … take all our land, our savings … abolish property, foxhunting …’
Churchill said patiently, his lisp very apparent – ‘Then you would vote, in the Lords, for such measures as I have stated will be necessary? The cost, I may add, will be enormous, but in essence incalculable because we do not know where or when any such action would end.’ He looked at Wilfred Bentley, and added, ‘I presume your party would be against any extension of aid to Admiral Kolchak.’
Bentley said quietly, ‘Of course. We were against interfering in Russia’s internal affairs from the beginning.’
Churchill cut in – ‘But the Bolsheviks have been interfering in everyone else’s – where they could … Poland, Esthonia, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania …’
‘… which were all Russian, before the war,’ Bentley said. He raised a long hand as Churchill opened his mouth – ‘But, Mr Churchill, we do agree with the Peace Conference’s decision to create those countries … we only wish it had created an independent, united Ireland, too – thus taking an insoluble problem out of our hands … But we must understand the Russian point of view in this matter. They had no say in the writing of the clauses that tore these new countries out of what they – even the Bolsheviks – regard as Holy Russia.’
‘Do you think that your party would so vote if it came to the test?’
Bentley said, ‘I can not speak officially for the Party in the Commons, but unofficially, yes, I can assure you that that is what we all feel. It is the Socialism of Russia that our Government is trying to stamp out and, of course we, as Socialists, want that to end at once.’
Churchill said softly, ‘Russian Bolshevism is a little different from British Socialism, my dear Bentley. Or does Snowden really keep a guillotine in his tool shed, for use on such as me and Carson and … Lord Walstone?’
Bentley laughed and Lord Walstone said, ‘Snowden? Chop my ’ead off? Not bloody likely! … How much would this cost? Sending a big army to smash the Bolshies?’
‘Millions … every day,’ Churchill said. ‘The reimposition of wartime controls … and the very strong chance that we would in any case fail. Russia’s a big place. Napoleon learned that, and it hasn’t grown any smaller since 1812.’
Lord Walstone said, ‘I say we must get out. Whatever happens it can’t be worse than if we go in there and start the war over again.’
‘Damned Bolsheviks,’ Lord Swanwick muttered.
Churchill said, ‘Well, that’s all. I think that when the moment comes, and it will be soon, the majority in both Lords and Commons will support our actions. For the Prime Minister’s mind is made up. We are going to withdraw all support from Admiral Kolchak. Good day, gentlemen.’
The others filed out. Two backwoods peers and one bright intellectual Socialist; you got as good an idea from them as in most other ways. He returned to the window. They were changing the guard. It had been only eight, nine months since there’d been a mob of mutinous soldiers out there, on the Horse Guards parade … and himself, here, asking whether the available battalion of Guards would obey their officers if ordered to disperse the mutineers. From that point of cris
is, England had subsided, back to safety, ceremony … the new guard was from the Blues, he noticed – dark blue tunics under the cuirasses, red plumes on the helmets … decency, form, custom. The Russians – into an abyss, of fire, hatred, blood …
He pressed the bell on his desk and in a moment his secretary came in. Churchill said, ‘Take a telegram, Charles. To Mr Balfour, in Paris. After discussing the situation about German prisoners with General Asser I am convinced that their repatriation should begin immediately. Their work is done; they are costing us more than £30,000 a day. A fine opportunity for repatriating them is afforded by using the return trains which are bringing back the British Divisions from the Rhine to French ports. In addition …’
Guy Rowland waited at the barrier, his head throbbing, watching as the train chuffed slowly up to the buffers at No. 20 Platform, Waterloo Station. His sister Virginia and her husband Stanley Robinson were in the front coach, and he saw them at once, as they came towards him among the crowd getting off the train. Stanley was wearing a blue suit with the zigzag-striped red and blue tie of the Royal Field Artillery, and a cloth cap, Virginia a plain blue cotton dress, and a wide-brimmed straw hat, and long white gloves. Guy kissed her and shook Stanley’s one hand – ‘You both look well,’ he said. ‘When do the boys come back?’
‘September 19th,’ Stanley said. ‘Guy, will they let me into Buckingham Palace with this cap? I just didn’t have the brass to buy a bowler.’
‘You’ll be taking it off as soon as we go inside,’ Guy said. ‘Where are your ribbons? In your pocket? Well, pin ’em on.’
He was in the new blue-grey uniform of the Royal Air Force, on his left breast the embroidered wings of the albatross, the bird that flies o’er land and sea, below it three long rows of ribbons denoting his British, French, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese, and Belgian decorations. They climbed into the waiting hired limousine and Guy said, ‘Frank and Anne Stratton are waiting for us at Victoria. We pick them up there and then go on to the Palace.’
‘What’ll the King say?’ Virginia asked excitedly. She was plumper than ever … and obviously pregnant again. Stanley looked at her with the same love, but now more coloured by proprietary pride … that’s my wife … she bears my children …
