INDIFFERENT HEROES

by MARY HOCKING

  clicked his tongue. ‘He didn’t know how to set about it; so he kept putting it off.’

  ‘I don’t think Gordon was like that.’ She preferred to think of him racked with agony, rather than merely procrastinating. ‘It’s so final.’ Her lips trembled. ‘I shall never know if he loved me or not.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t know either? If he was still alive, you would accept that. Why must it be all or nothing?’

  ‘Because I can never ask him now.’ She was over twenty and no man had yet loved her. The hopelessness of her situation welled up in her eyes.

  ‘But asking doesn’t solve anything, Alice! He would have made some sort of reply – yes or no or maybe – and you wouldn’t have been any wiser than you are now.’

  She sipped more champagne and essayed an unsteady gaiety. ‘You’re not being very kind about my broken heart.’

  He reached across the table and patted her cheek. ‘Hearts don’t break so easily, Alice. You know what is wrong with you? You never had the chance to tell him how mad you are with him. Now he’s dead, you have to pull a long face and keep saying respectful things about him.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he had ever lost anyone, but she remembered just in time that he had lost everyon - more or less. She looked at his dark, monkey face, and saw the bright eyes fixed on her as though he could read her thoughts. He said, ‘I am not married. So I am perfectly free to do anything you like when we leave here.’

  ‘I’d like to go for a walk.’

  ‘Oh, well . . .’

  They walked in the Nouhza Gardens. Either the champagne or the lobster had made Alice feel rather ill. She held tightly to Jacov’s arm, trying to fight down bouts of sickness and despair. She said, ‘Things will get better. All men aren’t like that, are they? It will be better next time.’

  ‘What makes you believe that?’

  ‘I hope.’

  ‘Why, if it only leads to disappointment?’

  A groundswell rolled her stomach about uneasily. ‘One must hope, Jacov.’

  ‘For what?’

  She said faintly, ‘There must always be something to hope for.’

  ‘Oh, Alice!’ He gave a little laugh, as though she were an inept pupil in the game of life.

  Yet he was very good company. During the next week she saw him several times, and gradually he restored both her spirits and her digestion.

  His was the gaiety of one who, hoping for nothing, is released from the need to be serious. Hers was the gaiety of spirit of one who, in spite of everything, will always hope. If they were to meet, each setting out from their position, surely they would effect reconciliation leading to a consummation on the far side of hope? Alice wondered if it would be too big a task to hope that she might redeem Jacov. By which she meant making him more like herself.

  There was no doubting that he was genuinely fond of her. As they walked in the Nouhza Gardens – she avoided the Corniche because it reminded her of Gordon – he told her about his life in the theatre. It seemed important to him that she should know how successful he was, and he let drop several well-known names. In spite of his boasting, he was never dull, being quite a raconteur. In some ways, he was like a boy coming home to talk to his family, showing off his cleverness and independence, yet still very much in need of their unchanging presence. The members of the Fairley family were, perhaps, the only unchanging presence Jacov had known. Alice felt alternately naive and motherly with him.

  In the Nouhza Gardens they sat under a tree, talking about Louise and Irene.

  ‘Do you think she will marry Angus?’ Alice asked. She hoped so much that Irene would be happy. Yet there was no doubting the relief she experienced when he replied, ‘I don’t think Angus will ever marry.’

  ‘And Daphne?’ she asked, feeling more relaxed now that she was assured of a comrade in misfortune. ‘I seem to have lost touch with Daphne.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her recently either. Angus says she is not living at home any more.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. Her father was . . .’ She stopped, surprised at having come so incautiously to a subject she never mentioned now.

  Jacov said, ‘Yes?’ He prompted because he was curious about other people’s fathers. Had Alice referred to Daphne’s mother, and then stopped, the conversation might never have taken place.

  He was not the only one to give Alice his attention. A ring of urchins was studying them from a distance, giggling and making salacious comments. Automatically, Alice pulled her skirt down over her knees. Other of her escorts would have driven the children away – never an effective gesture, they always came back. Jacov prompted again, ‘What about Commander Drummond?’

  ‘There was a woman who came to our chapel. Her name was Dolly Bligh. Her husband interfered with the children and they took the children away from her. They lived in one room – all of them. I thought it only happened because of that – I mean, to people who lived in those

  conditions.’

  Whenever she had tried to speak of this, she had started with Dolly Bligh. She remembered, in particular, that she had tried to tell Ben, and then Louise. In both cases, she had got no further than Dolly Bligh. But perhaps this time she had been more explicit, for Jacov was looking at her speculatively; and he did not interrupt to comment on the sad case of Dolly Bligh.

  ‘Then, when I was at Crusaders, I heard a girl talking about the Drummonds. This girl’s aunt had worked at the Drummond house, and she said she had had to leave because she didn’t like the atmosphere there – she said he paid too much attention to his elder daughter.’

  Jacov said, ‘You mean incest?’

  ‘No, no!’ she protested, unprepared to apply such a word to a friend. ‘But later on. Daphne said something about his twisting her arm . . . and I knew inside me that there was something else . . . I don’t mean that anything actually happened . . .’

  ‘They just played games?’

  She looked down at the grass. How strange that this should have come out, here, under the Egyptian sun. She thought, shocked more by herself now than the Drummonds, that she would have preferred to have left it at incest. Playing games seemed much nastier.

  ‘You’re not shocked,’ she accused Jacov, but smiling, because she wasn’t feeling as bad as she had expected.

  He thought it more unnatural that a father should take no interest in his wife and children, and infinitely more cruel. As for incest. . . ‘I suppose it may be bad for our advanced society to adopt the practices of antiquity.’

  ‘You’re laughing at me!’

  ‘Nothing shocks me, Alice.’ He studied her face. ‘And that doesn’t shock you?’

  She shook her head, uncomprehending.

  ‘You don’t know, do you, what that means – being unshockable? If the nerves of our body fail to register shock, our whole system is at risk. If there should ever be an entire race of unshockable people, the world would come to an end.’

  ‘You never take anything seriously, Jacov.’

  ‘That, too.’

  She shifted so that she was sitting sideways, her skirt primly covering legs and ankles. Suddenly, she remembered a dream of long ago. A boy and a girl, sitting on the grass, making a garland of flowers: an idyllic picture, yet in the dream, there had been a sense of something dreadful awaiting these two beyond their formal border of flowers. She put her hand in his

  and they sat quietly for a few minutes, each with their own thoughts.

  Jacov’s company was performing in Cairo the following week. He asked Alice to join him there for a few days. She did not think she could get leave, but it was granted. Her ill-health had been noted; there had been talk of sending her back to England if she did not recover.

  She had spent a few hours in Cairo during the Flap. Now she looked forward to a longer stay and was not disappointed.

  Cairo seemed much more lively than Alexandria. It had not been bombed, although the front line at Alamein was less than a hundred miles away. The str
eet lights, painted blue, shone all night giving the city an eerie gaiety. It was also much hotter than Alexandria, where there was always a sea breeze. Already tired from the journey in a crowded, stinking railway carriage, Alice had a headache, which never seemed to clear while she was in Cairo. Nevertheless, she set about making the most of her time there. She was sufficient of the seasoned traveller by now to consider headaches and stomach disorders a part of being abroad, along with sand and flies and palm trees.

  She stayed at the YWCA. In the morning, she woke to cries from the minarets as the muezzins called the people to prayer. She dressed, breakfasted on figs, and then took a tram to the centre of the town. She was to meet Jacov later. There was a rehearsal this morning; one of the minor parts had had to be recast owing to the illness of the player concerned.

  As she walked through the main streets, crowded with service people of all nationalities, she wished that Ben was with her. He would revel in this dusty, clamorous city with its wealth of medieval buildings! Nothing would escape him: mosques, tombs, caravanserais, stone fortifications would all be examined as well as the more famous monuments. He would drag her down side-streets, loiter in the bazaars, when all she wanted was coffee. By the end of the first morning, she would be tired out and exasperated with him beyond bearing! It was so real to her that she laughed aloud. No such energy could be expected of Jacov. She hoped, however, that she could persuade him to take her to the Pyramids.

  This proved impracticable. His contribution to seeing the sights of Cairo was to take her to Groppi’s. The needs of the touring company precluded his being away long enough to leave the city.

  ‘If we went it would have to be in the afternoon. The heat is terrible then. You would find it quite unbearable after Alexandria.’ He ignored the fact that she had spent some time in the desert. ‘And there is always a haze. You need to see them at sunset.’

  ‘But there may not be another time.’

  ‘Alice, you are the hopeful one. Look to the future. Here we are! You

  will enjoy this much more than the Pyramids.’

  ‘Have you been?’

  ‘Everyone insisted on going as soon as we arrived. It nearly killed us. Elizabeth Barrett nodded off on her couch during the evening performance.’

  Alice noted selfishness in him, which was a surprise as he had always seemed so ready to please others. The dedication with which he made his selection of pastries was also a revelation. Perhaps the lobster and champagne had not been a treat especially for her benefit? She wondered, as he consumed an excessively sticky confection, what was his taste in women. He had confided a lot to her about his theatrical ventures, but had made only a few references to love affairs. He knows more about me than I know of him, she thought. She was persuaded to have another pastry. Her headache was worse when they eventually left.

  It persisted throughout the performance of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Nevertheless, the excitement of being in a theatre again, and of knowing the producer, quite outweighed this.

  They were to go to a party at the flat of a diplomat who was friendly with one of the members of the cast. Alice was shy at the thought of meeting theatrical people, but she need not have worried. She had the qualities they cherished, enthusiasm and a desire to please.

  ‘It seems rather an odd choice, don’t you think?’ Browning asked. His tone was tentative; his brown, doleful eyes waited for reassurance. In case it should not be forthcoming, he laughed wearily, ‘Goodness knows what they made of it.’

  ‘They loved it. It’s so romantic.’

  The audience had consisted mainly of sailors. ‘I suppose almost anything is welcome after so much time at sea,’ he pouted. ‘They would probably have been moved by Jack and the Beanstalk.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Alice undertook to defend the emotional integrity of the Navy. ‘I remember seeing the film of New Moon with Jeannette McDonald and Nelson Eddy. They thought the love scenes in that were hilarious. Then there is that song which goes

  “Give me ten stalwart men

  ‘Who are steady and strong

  ‘Who will fight for the right

  ‘To be free . . .”

  When all the men began to line up behind Nelson Eddy, one of the matelots shouted, “Liberty men, fall in!” It was uproar after that.’

  ‘I see. “Liberty men, fall in!” Yes, very amusing. At least no one shouted at us.’

  ‘And it is romantic. In real life, I mean. The way they fell in love, and those wonderful letters, and the elopement. They went through with it; they didn’t hold back, or cheat . . .’ Tears filled her eyes.

  Browning, accepting her emotion as a tribute to his performance,said, ‘Much better than Nelson Eddy, eh!’ He put his arms around her and called to Jacov, ‘Alice thinks I am better than Nelson Eddy.’

  The diplomat said ambiguously, ‘No comparison, my dear fellow.’

  They all loved one another throughout the evening.

  ‘You were a great success,’ Jacov told her as he walked back to the YWCA with her.

  ‘I thought it was a lovely party.’

  She would not have wanted too much of it, though; they were all a little unreal. To Jacov, this was the reality: the food, the drink, the noise and laughter, the generosity of the emotions of people constantly constructing a special world in which they could belong, however momentarily. He longed for, treasured and respected the dull ordinariness of life as lived by the Fairleys; but he had no idea what it was that really mattered to them. He mistook the symbols for the things symbolized; and he was grieved and perplexed that Alice should have preferred a visit to the Pyramids to tea at Groppi’s. Family life, to him, depended on afternoon tea and a well-trimmed hedge.

  ‘I will call for you tomorrow,’ he said when they parted.

  ‘I thought I would take myself to the Pyramids. It will be my last opportunity.’

  ‘No, no. I am taking you to Shepheard’s. You can’t come to Cairo and not eat at Shepheard’s.’

  He kissed her goodnight. A surprisingly chaste kiss. She thought that he was being careful of her because she had not yet recovered from the loss of Gordon. In fact, she represented something of a problem to him. She was the embodiment of all the Fairleys: kissing a whole family is difficult.

  Over lunch at Shepheard’s, he said to her, ‘You are beginning to look better, Alice. But this life out here doesn’t suit you. Will you marry me? Then you could get out of the Wrens and go home.’ He seemed to be adopting the style of the actor-manager, taking a paternalistic interest in the lives of his troupe.

  Alice said, ‘But I like being in the Wrens.’

  ‘Do you?’ This gave him pause for thought; his plate was empty, in any case, and he was waiting for her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I meet new people and see different places.’

  ‘You don’t want the old people and the old places?’ He was distressed. He valued unchangingness in the Fairleys.

  ‘Eventually, I want them, of course. But not until after the war.’

  ‘Then will you marry me and stay in the Wrens?’

  This time Alice paused to finish her soup. She put down the spoon and said, ‘Are you in love with me, Jacov?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, exactly. Is it that you want our relationship to be more than a matter of going to bed with each other?’

  ‘Well, I’d like to know about that as well.’ It was not to be assumed that the matter did not arise.

  ‘Are you a virgin still?’

  Alice went red.

  He said, ‘I see. Is this is troubling you?’

  They were both becoming confused, neither sure what was being offered or what was the more important to the other.

  ‘I don’t know if I could,’ he said, wrinkling his brow over a dish of sea food. ‘I promised your father once that his daughters would be safe with me. It was a matter of honour. I let him down over Louise.’

  ‘Really, Jacov!’ Alice said with asperity. ‘It is me you are involved with no
w, not my father.’

  ‘I will marry you.’ He spoke with resolution. ‘I will marry you tomorrow.’

  ‘You didn’t know my father very well if you think he would have been happy about that kind of arrangement.’

  ‘What kind of arrangement?’

  ‘A marriage without love.’

  ‘But I do love you, Alice.’

  ‘And Louise, and Claire. And Mother as well, probably.’ She was eating fast; she would regret this all the way back to Alexandria.

  ‘But I always had a special feeling about you.’

  ‘What special feeling?’

  He spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It is not possible to be specific in these matters. You, who are so romantic, should realize that.’

  ‘I don’t see anything romantic in offering to marry me so that I can get out of the Wrens and go home!’

  ‘I do not understand you.’

  They drank their coffee in silence. On their way to the station, Alice said, ‘I think we both need time to think.’ He seemed as glad of a pause for reflection as she.

  On her return to Alexandria, Alice reflected. For several days she went about her work in a state of confusion. There was something to be said for getting this business of being a virgin over and done with; and she could think of no one better suited to perform this office for her than Jacov. But although she had accommodated herself to many new ideas, she found that in some respects she had changed little. She did not want to treat sex as an initiation, a kind of tribal rite to be performed at a certain age. She knew several girls who had behaved in this way and had had little pleasure from it. The enjoyment of physical love, she had noted, could be destroyed as readily by indulgence as restraint. These, however, were the arguments of the head. The heart still cried out foolishly for the love of one man, for the consummation of their love in marriage.

  These, and kindred matters, were often the subject of discussion in the dormitory. Alice usually remained silent, not wishing, as Madeleine put it, ‘to cast her few small pearls before swine’. One evening, in a moment of weakness, she confessed her predicament.