The Golden Virgin (14 page)

“I can’t dance.”

“Come, I’ll show you,” said Alice, holding out her arms.

“But I’m no good, really.”

“It’s quite easy. Just let yourself glide to the lilt of the music.”

“I feel glued to the floor,” he said, with a laugh to hide his fear of being clumsy and foolish.

“Come on,” said Alice, smiling steadily into his eye, “you’re not going to get out of it.”

“My shoes have rubber studs on them, and won’t glide.”

To his relief the motor ran down at this point. He wound the handle, while Alice looked through the case of records, picking out one after another, swiftly to reject disc after disc and half-drop them on the growing pile. He wanted to ask her to be careful, but kept silent. Obviously she thought little of them.

“Haven’t you got any foxtrots more up-to-date than Hitchy Koo?”

“Afraid not.”

“Got any Winner records?”

“Sorry. Only His Master’s Voice, and some cheap Zonophones.”

“Do you like only serious music?”

“Well, yes.”

She went to the gramophone. “Put on that waltz again. I’ll show you the steps. It’s simple—one, one two, one, one two. Take off your shoes, you can do it in your socks.”

There was a hole in one toe; but he overcame his dread, took off the shoes, and stood trepidant before her.

“This arm goes round my waist, like this.” She hid his hand behind her, pressed it firmly. “Now give me your other hand.” A whiff of La Rola scent, as in the advertisements of the girl with wind-blown hair, further discomposed him. “Now, follow my steps, one, one two, one, one two. That’s right. Only don’t hold yourself so stiffly, let yourself go loosely, as though you were balancing a pile of books on your head. Don’t laugh!” She shook him, and said, “You’re not trying! Now be serious,” with a little
shake. He felt easier, and thought it rather a joke when he bumped backwards into Bason.

Thereafter the joke was repeated at intervals, the two manœuvring to give one another bumps.

“How about a drink?” suggested Bason, when they were resting. “I’ve got some gin, and a bottle of crême de menthe. You ladies no doubt will plump for mother’s ruin? No? Well, how about some of the green eye of the little yellow god?” as he held up the bottle.

“Only a little, please, Bruce,” said Frances. “Not more than a thimbleful, really.”

Bason gave them each half a small glass. “What about you, Phil? Mother’s ruin?”

“Beer, thanks, Bruce.”

They sat round the fire, and sudden complete easiness came over Phillip. He lay stretched out in an armchair, on the small of his back, feet stretched to the blaze, feeling that he had known them all his life. Outside the December afternoon died as it had begun, in dullness; within the room all was contentment. He marvelled anew at the wonderful turn his life had taken; he was living a man’s life, every day brought its different adventures.

Seeing that Bason’s glass was empty, he arose with Indian smoothness and unscrewed the top of a beer bottle, gently controlling the sneeze of gas, and then with extreme care three-quarter filled the glass which Bason held on his knee, as he lay back on the sofa beside Frances, one arm amiably around her shoulders. His company commander’s face, with its expression of happy relaxation as he stared into the flames of the fire, conveyed perfectly his thanks.

Continuing his silent unspeaking glide Phillip went to Alice with the liqueur bottle. One raised eyebrow and a gap between finger and thumb of half an inch beside the small narrow glass held in her hand, a meticulous pouring of the thick green liquid, a little jerk to contain the drip; then in the same flow of silence, save for the flap of flames, he half-filled Frances’ glass, and afterwards his own glass, from the beer bottle. Holding them in the spell of his movement, he glided to the gramophone, wound it slowly, put on a record, set it flowing in circular motion as the centre of a dark deep whirlpool, and gliding away, stood beside the aspidistra fern in its brass cup on the stand and held down his eyes as the two voices, one delicate and ethereal, the other deep and tender, brought back memories of “Spectre” West and Y Z night before the battle of Loos.

Pretending not to see that Frances’ eyes were on him, as he lifted the sound-box from the last groove, and that Alice was patting as though secretly the sofa for him to come beside her, and that her lips were parted, and her eyes, smaller than those of Frances, had the dreamy look he had noticed when he kissed her in the cinema box, Phillip put on the
Liebestod
from
Tristan
und
Isolde,
and went back beside the fern, to feel the sad beauty of darkness, and the dying music of the sun.

“Play some more, Phil,” said Bason.

There seemed to be a feeling of unity, of friendliness and ease in the room beyond ordinary hankering desires, by which usually he had wanted to escape from the dull and terrifying nihilism of being alone. It was dark outside, the flame-light jerked about on the ceiling. He lit a candle beside the gramophone, and played record after record.

“Oh, not that old thing! They play it in every electric palace!”

He felt foolish, and took off Sinding’s
Rustle
of
Spring.

“How about Tchaikowski? The
Sugar
Plum
Fairy
isn’t bad.”

“All right, if it’s the best you’ve got.”

“Don’t be so beastly, Alice!” said Frances, sitting up.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Phillip.

“Have another crême de menthe?” suggested Bason, lazily, re-crossing his strapped leggings, and jingling his spurs. He yawned without putting hand to mouth.

“Can’t we do something? How about going to a dance?” said Alice. “I like light and gaiety.” She got up and danced by herself, round the table. Coming to Phillip, she put her arm on his shoulder. He felt proud and grateful, and crossed his arm with hers, on her silky shoulder. He was happy again.

“You want taking out of yourself,” said Alice, nuzzling his cheek with her nose.

Bason lit the gas. Then he opened a box and produced three balls and a magic wand. He did things with the balls, holding them between the fingers of one hand, waving the wand, and with a twist of fingers, the balls vanished. There were several variations of this, then he did other tricks, remarking, “The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

“I saw Chung Ling Soo once saw a woman in half on the stage, wonder how it was done,” said Phillip, thinking of Desmond beside him in the sixpennies of the Hippo.

“Like this?” said Alice, doing the splits on the rug before the fire, showing a length of silk stocking. Bason pretended to hide his eyes with a hand. “Ooh,” he said, grinning at Phillip.

“Really!” said Frances, as Alice began a
pas
seul,
snapping her fingers as though they were castanets. Soon they were dancing again, to the Eternal Waltz. The table was shoved against the wall, and the fun went on, until the landlady appeared with a tray, to lay the table.

“My,” she said, “you young people are enjoying yourselves.”

A move to a camp was made the following week. The huts were of asbestos, and cold, for although each cubicle, for two officers, had a cast-iron stove, there was no coal.

“We’re in a K3 division now, old sport,” said Bason. “What’s more, we’ve got a good chance of going to France next year, perhaps in time for the Big Push! What luck, eh?”

Phillip’s room-mate was an amiable, goggle-eyed, half-bald man of about thirty called Lord, who had been selected with him for the Lewis Gun Course. The camp was a big one; huts were going up for miles around. Every morning the two subalterns set off for a large hut where instruction in the new automatic weapon was given.

The mechanism was explained by a staff sergeant, whose sentences never varied. Having seen how it worked, by the pressure of gas behind a bullet coming through a port in the barrel and ramming a piston down a tube to work the feeding and extractor mechanism, while turning the black circular metal drum of ammunition holding 47 rounds which clapped on above the lock, Phillip had no interest in the technical terms. The gun was cooled by rayed fins inside a cylinder taking away the heat of the barrel. Cold air was drawn through the fins by the pumping action of a buffet ring on the muzzle; the gun could jam at various positions of the cocking handle, and these places, and the direct action to be
taken to clear stoppages, had to be learnt by heart. Anyone could see that in five minutes; the rest of the jargon, to be repeated until one was a parrot, was a waste of time.

“Come, sir, what comes after ‘The action of the cocking handle being drawn back on the rack——’.”

“I can make the gun work, sergeant, but not those words.”

“Come, sir, have another try. ‘The action of the cocking handle——’”

Patiently the staff sergeant repeated the mechanical sentences for the various mechanical details, and in turn the assembled N.C.O.s and officers had to repeat them. The idea was to learn everything by heart, before going on the range to fire the damned thing. Morning after morning was spent in the hut with the verbiage attached to the Lewis gun. Regularly Captain Milman the new adjutant came in, to ask cheerfully how they were getting on. Every afternoon, following tea in the mess, Bason and Phillip set out to walk to the station, three miles away, to catch the train for Baker Street, and an evening with Alice and Frances. Night after night they returned to camp between one and two in the morning.

Christmas was only two days off when it was announced that one half of the officers were to have four days leave including the 25th and 26th; while the other half would go away, on the return of the first half, until New Year’s Eve.

Phillip was not among the lucky first batch; he would have to take his after Christmas, as Bason was going to his home in Brondesbury for what he called the festive occasion.

On the morning of Christmas Eve there was a junior officers’ test for promotion. Ah, at last, thought Phillip. After a little drill, forming platoons on the left, fixing bayonets, and marching a skeleton company about, their fitness was to be tested by a forced march. They had to cover ten miles in three hours across country, which meant a circular route round several lanes. A captain, a Scotsman from Glasgow, who had been prominent in the Trades Union movement with Colonel Broad before the war, was detailed to take a score of subalterns on the march. They got as far as a small public house down a lane, and then with a grin, the big ruddy faced Captain ‘Brassy’ Cusack, who was a father of a growing family, said in broad Scots, “Here’s a guid wee bothy where I can test your various capacities, gentlemen,” as he halted them and knocked on the door.

The landlord opened it, they went inside, and soon the captain
was seated at the piano, his pint pot on the lid, playing while Cox, Lord, Flagg, and others roared out popular songs. There they stayed drinking beer and eating bread and cheese for two and a half hours, leaving to get back to camp with ten minutes to spare. Captain Cusack reported to the adjutant, who came out with Major Gleeson, pipe in mouth. After an amused stare around Major Gleeson told the adjutant to carry on, and relighting his pipe, went back to the warm stove in his office.

“Carry on, will you, Captain Cusack,” said Captain Milman, and followed the C.O. into the Orderly Room.

“Fall out, you wretched lot of tipplers,” said ‘Brassy’, “ye’ll all be pleased to hear ye’re fit for promotion.”

“Hurray!” cried Phillip. “Up the Jocks, and down with the pints!” as he walked to the mess for tea, lots of tea to take away the saltpetre thickness of the beer on his tongue.

Bason had a bag to take on leave, and he and several others took a taxi to the station. “Room for a little one,” he said to Phillip, who had written to Alice to say that he would expect her at the usual time on Christmas Eve at the Apex House for dinner, and would she like to go with him to the Coliseum afterwards. He wrote at the same time to the Coliseum, for two tickets in the front row of the stalls for the second house, enclosing a cheque for £1 as deposit.

In the train to Baker Street Bason said “Frances told me that Alice wouldn’t mind being engaged to you, Phil.”

This was so unexpected, and complimentary, that Phillip could think of nothing to say in reply.

Engaged to Alice! Every week there were pages of twin photographs, like two pigeon’s eggs side by side in rows of nests, of officers and their fiancées, in
The
Tatler
and
Bystander.
He sat in the train looking at his polished brown shoes, with slight feelings of pleasurable satisfaction, that he, Phillip Maddison, would have a girl of his own. But what could he say to ask her? He shied away from the thought, and by the time they got to Baker Street, it had passed from his mind.

Saying goodbye to Bason, he went on the Underground to Piccadilly Circus, where the outlet near the Criterion Restaurant was lined with what Bason called hoo-ers.

“Hullo, dearie? Want a sweetheart?”

He walked past several requests, saying cheerfully to each, “No thanks,” but at the entrance into the street, by the dim blue lights, a dark girl took his arm, and said in a Scots voice, “Be a guid laddie and take my arm, a bluebottle is watching me, to arr-rest
me.” She held him with a strong bony arm, and they walked as far as the corner of Lower Regent Street, where she stopped.

“Gi’e me a wee drappie, and then I know a bonny place yonder, in Coventry Street. You can gi’e me what you like. I’ve seen you fre-e-equently, who are you, Broken Billy? Have ye no cash? I don’t mind, for once, Billy.”

“Well, thank you very much, but I’m meeting a friend,” he explained; whereupon the croodling tone evaporated and in a voice hard and sharp and deadly as a hatpin she swore at him for half a minute, while binding to him with the bone of her upper arm, before becoming a shadow in the night. Perhaps she had dreamed herself almost to death, he thought. Her heart must be broken, beyond tears. Did she still long for true love? Gould a
prostitute
love anyone?

Somewhat shaken, he crossed the road, and went into the gilt and marble Apex House, and upstairs to the Green Room, with pleasurable feelings that he would soon be seeing Alice.

When after ten minutes she did not come, he went downstairs to look for her, and after waiting there another five minutes, he returned to the Green Room, and at once saw that Alice was already sitting at a far table with Timmy, her naval commander. The commander was leaning over the table, his face close to hers. She was smiling, as she looked into his eyes. Pretending not to have seen them, he went on without pause to his table, and keeping his eyes down, sat there mournful and perplexed until his waiter came. Hardly knowing what he said, he ordered a bottle of claret and a herb omelette. This he ate, with draughts of wine, followed by toasted cheese, and angels on horseback.

Brandy and black coffee to follow; then, having got the bill, he tipped the waiter five shillings, and forcing himself to appear easy and nonchalant, like a misjudged hero in a magazine story, he walked across the room and out into the street and so to the Café Royal, hoping against hope that she would follow him, and a touching scene of wet-eyed remorse follow.

He swirled in black depression; and after sitting still for some time, turned suddenly to the red-bearded painter at the next table and said, “Please may I speak to you, sir?”

“By all means. Have a drink.”

After an interval Phillip said, “I’ve got two tickets for the Coliseum. Would you—please forgive me asking—but would you care to come with me?”

“Unfortunately I have an appointment,” replied the painter,
taking out a gold watch. “Some other time, perhaps. I won’t have a drink, thank you. Good luck to you.”

Phillip walked to the Coliseum, his hands clenched as he said to himself that this was the end of a friendship.

He hardly knew what went on on the stage before him. There was a long sketch called Potash and Perlmutter, which seemed to amuse the audience; it was all about men with voices like lizards selling ladies underwear, but how it was funny, he could not see. There were songs, the chief being one he knew, from a record of his father’s,
The
Bride
of
Lammermuir,
by Donnizetti. There were acrobats, some dancers, and two rather sweet sisters with dark hair, dressed in yellow, who were stars, called Beattie and Babs.

Christmas Eve! Eleven o’clock in London, midnight in Berlin. Now the lighted fir-trees would be on the parapets, voices singing
Heilige
Nacht.
Why was he not there, how could it be the same without him, he thought, as he stood to attention for
God
Save
the
King.

And so to Baker Street station, through darkness without meaning, and the long walk to camp, while he lived in memory upon the frozen battlefield, where the morning star shone white and lustrous in the east.

It was one o’clock when he got to his cubicle, to see Lord lying on his camp bed fully dressed and snoring, an empty bottle of grocer’s port and an untasted cup of cold tea on the floor beside him.

*

Christmas Day at the camp was given over to ghosts, though few knew it: the ghosts of lost childhoods, of lovelessness, of spiritual self denials and self-suppressions so normal that almost automatically most of the herded young men got drunk.

It began with a church parade which was for most a mere marking time, until they should get back to, or away from, camp, and so start the day. Rounds of drinks in the mess, joviality, rivalry, one bad quarrel—Ray calling Wigg a hoary old swankpot and Wigg calling Ray a little squit from the gutter—while others sought to get the insulted to shake hands: which both refused to do with mutual scorn. Christmas dinner, presided over by Major Gleeson, was of roast beef and baked potatoes dripping with fat inside and out; and the fat on the baron of beef was yellow. Lord, who had worked for a butcher in private life, said it was cow-beef, which was the cause of the toughness and the frill-like yellow fat. Lumps of it were left on the sides of plates.

“Goo on,” said Major Gleeson from the top table, “eat it up, you fellers. Do you good. Provides ’eat, lines yer guts with plenty o’ reserve energy.” He put a wodge of the stuff on his fork and flipped it into his mouth, then steadily chewed, while an amiable grin spread over his face. The Christmas pudding tasted of gritty currants and water, its flavour all boiled away. The rich tawny port then began to circulate.

Lord, who shared Phillip’s cubicle, was away, so Phillip had the brittle grey hollow—to which came most noises in the other eleven cubicles in the hut—to himself. The window was too high for an emergency, but he found his way out of the door and down the passage and away into the darkness where beef, pudding, and port left their temporary receptacle on the way back to earth.

When Lord returned soon after midnight he found Phillip lying in his bed surrounded by empty cups of tea, and an empty bottle of milk of magnesia.

“Blime,” he said, “looks as though you’ve been enjoyin’ yerself, old cock.”

“For God’s sake put out that horrible cigar,” groaned Phillip.

*

During his four days leave he did not see Desmond, who had been home for Christmas. Mrs. Neville had been away on Boxing Day, she said, and on her return, had found plates and glasses “all over the place”, with half-drunk cups of tea and a bottle of whiskey on her drawing-room table
with
the
cork
out,
beside a pile of records and Phillip’s trench-gramophone. Her son and Gene, she declared, with laughter, must have had an
orgy.
Well, how was Phillip?

He told her all about the visit to Tollemere, Father Aloysius (“Yes, everyone speaks well of him, Phillip”), the girls of Northampton and the new fellows at the camp.

“We are no longer navvies, Mrs. Neville, but part of Kitchener’s Army, and as such I suppose, will go out when trained to take part in the Big Push everyone is talking about for next summer. Ah well, I shan’t mind going back there again, we’re all in it together.” Then he asked about what was pressing on his mind: had she any news of Helena Rolls.

“I see her coming up on her bicycle, Phillip, from the Hospital, and she always looks up at my window and waves to me. She is a brave girl, she has
pride
you know, but one can see from her face, how it has been refined by grief, that she still feels Bertie Cakebread’s death. Why don’t you go in and see her one night? When
the old man’s away, of course, as he is from Monday till Friday. There can be no harm in it. Take your gramophone with you, why not, and let her mother and Helena hear some of your beautiful music.”

“Oh, I daren’t! They would think I am imposing on them!”

Instead, Phillip played his favourite
Liebestod
at the open window of the front room at home, as Helena walked by, pushing her bicycle, on two afternoons in succession; but on neither occasion did her footfalls pause behind the privet hedge; she was gone, remaining what she had always been to Phillip, a vision: but now intensified in his mind as Colour and Warmth and Light, great rest, and fullness after dearth.