The Levant Trilogy (28 page)

He spoke briskly to Simon: 'Sorry to hear what
happened, old chap. I know how you feel. Knocks you sideways for a time, but we
all have to face up to these things. Fortunes of war, y'know. You in for a spot
of leave?'

'I've got seven days.'

'Good for you. Splendid. I've a table booked for
supper so we have to be on our way, but see you again, I hope.'

Swinging round, Peter put a possessive hand on
Edwina's shoulder and said, ' Come along, old girl.'

Simon, realizing Peter's ascendancy over her,
turned on Edwina with a dazed and questioning expression that disturbed her.
She said, 'I've forgotten my handkerchief,' and ran back to her room.

Peter returned his attention to Simon: 'Envy
you, y'know. Long to be back at the front m'self. Can't stand the
"Armchair" set-up.'

Simon stared at him for a moment then did his
best to respond: 'You wouldn't want to be where I am, sir.' He explained that
his unit was a 'Jock' column that patrolled the southern sector of the line:
'The fighting's always somewhere else.'

'Still, you're not in a damned silly office.
You're leading a man's life.'

Simon agreed. He said the life suited him. If
the patrols were uneventful he was compensated by the comradeship of the men.

Harriet, watching them as they talked, saw Peter
avoiding a direct glance at Simon whose eyes were still red, while Simon was
regaining his vitality. The worst, the most immediate, pain of loss was over
and, soon enough, Hugo, for all of them, would be no more than a sad memory at
the back of the mind.

Simon was saying there was one thing he enjoyed
in the desert. He enjoyed finding his way around.' I've got a sense of the
place, somehow. I feel I belong there.' That morning, in despair, he would have
been glad never to see the desert again. Now, envied and infected by Peter's approval
of desert life, he said, 'To tell you the truth, I'll be glad to get back
there. I'd like to have a real go at the bastards. They killed my brother when
he was with an ambulance, bringing in the wounded. They shot them up. They knew
what they were doing. I feel I owe them one.'

'That's the spirit.' Peter took a diary from an
inner pocket: 'If you'd like a transfer, I might work it. A chap who's good at
finding his way round has his uses in the desert. You could become a liaison
officer. Would that appeal to you?'

Simon, feeling guilty that this day of
misfortune might also be the day of opportunity, blushed and said, 'It would
indeed, sir.'

Edwina, returning to the room as Peter was
noting down Simon's name and position at the front, was relieved to find the
men on easy terms. She gave Simon a conciliatory smile then, watching Peter as
he wrote, stood, waiting, with a sort of avid patience until he was ready for
her.

Putting the diary back in his pocket, he said,
'Right, I'll start things moving,' then he called to Edwina: 'Come along,' and
she followed him obediently from the flat.

Simon, looking after them, at once forgot the
proposed transfer, and felt only amazement that Edwina, who had been Hugo's
girl, should now be subject to this heavy-featured colonel. It had seemed to
him that while Edwina shared his love for Hugo, Hugo was not completely dead.
Remembering Hugo's looks, his gentleness, his absolute niceness, he felt these
qualities slighted -and yet, what good would they be to her now?

Harriet, pitying his downcast face, said: 'You'll
stay to supper, won't you?'

'No. No thank you.' Simon felt he only wanted to
get away from this room which held Edwina's lingering fragrance, but did not
know where he would go. This flat, because it was Edwina's flat, had had for
him a glowing, beckoning quality, and he knew nowhere else in Cairo. He did not
know the name of any street except the one in the army song: the Berka. That
was where the men went to find bints.

'Well, have another drink before you go.'

Realizing he had no heart for bints that
evening, Simon let Harriet refill his glass and asked: 'Who is this Colonel
Lisdoonvarna? It's an unusual name.'

'It's an Irish name. He's Lord Lisdoonvarna but,
as you know, we don't use titles these days.'

'I see.' Simon did indeed see. The fact that
Peter was a peer solved a mystery but the solution was more painful than his
earlier perplexity. He sat silent, glass in hand, not drinking, hearing the
safragi laying the supper table. If he were going, he should go now, but
instead he sat on, too dispirited to move.

The front door opened and another occupant of
the flat entered the room. This was a woman older than Edwina or Harriet,
delicately built with dark eyes and a fine, regular face.

Coming in quickly, saying 'Hello' to Harriet,
she gave an impression of genial gaiety, an impression that surprised Simon who
had recognized her at once. She was Lady Hooper. He had been one of a picnic
party that had gone uninvited to the Hoopers' house in the Fayoum and had
blundered in on tragedy.

Harriet said, 'Angela, do you remember Simon
Boulderstone?'

'Yes, I remember.' Whether the memory was
painful or not, she smiled happily on Simon and taking his hand, held it as she
said: 'You were the young officer who was in the room when I brought in my little
boy. We didn't know he was dead, you know: or perhaps we couldn't bear to know.
It must have been upsetting for you. I'm sorry.' Angela gazed at Simon still
smiling and waited as though there was point in apologizing so long after the
event.

Harriet said, 'I'm afraid Simon has another
reason to be upset. His brother has been killed.'

'Oh, poor boy!' She placed her other hand on top
of his and held on to him: 'So we are both bereaved! You will stay with us,
won't you?' She turned to Harriet to ask: 'Who's in tonight? What about Guy?'
Guy was Harriet's husband. Harriet shook her head. 'Not Guy, that goes without
saving. And Edwina's out with Peter. It's Dobson's night on duty at the
Embassy, so that leaves only us and Percy Gibbon.'

'Percy Gibbon! Oh lord, that's good reason to go
out. Let's take this beautiful young man into the world. Let's flaunt him.' She
laughed at Simon and squeezed his hand: 'Where would you like to go?'

'I don't know. I've never been anywhere in
Cairo. I haven't even been to the Berka.'

'Oh, oh, oh!' Angela's amusement was such that
she dropped back on to the sofa taking Simon with her: 'You dreadful creature,
wanting to visit the Berka!'

Simon reddened in his confusion: 'I didn't mean
I wanted... It's just that the men talk about it. It's the only street name I
know.'

This renewed Angela's laughter and Simon,
watching her as she wiped her eyes and said' Oh dear, oh dear!' was disturbed
by this gaiety and wondered how she could so quickly put death out of mind. Yet
he smiled and Harriet, also disturbed by Angela's light-hearted behaviour, was
relieved to see his smile.

'Let's send Hassan out for a taxi.' Angela
turned to Harriet: 'If we're going on the tiles, we'll need more male
protection. Where shall we find it? How about the Union? Who's likely to be
there?'

'Castlebar, I imagine.'

Angela, who had left her husband after her son's
death, had come to live in Dobson's flat hoping, as she said, to find congenial
company. She had found Harriet and through her had met Castlebar. The mention
of Castlebar was a joke between them and Harriet explained to Simon.

'Castlebar haunts the place. When he's not
sitting on the lawn, it's as though a familiar tree had been cut down.'

Listening to this, Angela became restless and
broke in to say: 'Come on. Let's get going.'

Hassan, told to find them a taxi, goggled in
indignation: 'No need taxi. All food on table now.' Forced out on what he saw
as a superfluous task, he came back with a gharry and said, 'No taxis, not
anywhere.'

Angela, taking it for granted that Simon would
accompany them, led him down to the gharry and sat beside him. As the gharry
ambled through Garden City to the main road, she held him tightly by the hand
and talked boisterously so, whether he wanted to come or not, he was given no
chance to refuse.

Bemused by all that was happening, he thought of
her carrying the dead child into the Fayoum house, and felt she was beyond his
understanding. He tried to ease his hand away but she would not let him go and
so, still clasped like lovers, they crossed the dark water towards the
riverside lights of Gezira.

There was no moon. The lawns of the
Anglo-Egyptian Union were lit by the windows of the club house and the bright,
greenish light of the Officers' Club that faced it. At the edge of the lawn,
old trees, that had grown to a great height, crowded their heads darkly above
the tables set out for the club members.

Having conducted Simon into the club, Angela let
him go and walked on ahead, apparently looking for someone who was not there.
When they sat down at a table, she was subdued as though disappointed.

Unlike the other members who were drinking
coffee or Stella beer, Angela ordered a bottle of whisky and told the safragi
to bring half a dozen glasses. Her advent at the Union a few weeks before had
caused a sensation, but she was a sensation no longer. The Union membership
comprised university lecturers, teachers of English and others of the poorer
English sort while Angela was known to be a rich woman who mixed with the Cairo
gambling, polo-playing set. Her nightly order of a bottle of whisky had
startled the safragis at first but now it was brought without question.

Harriet, who did not like whisky, was given wine
but Simon accepted the glass poured for him though he did not drink it. When
they were all served, the bottle was placed like a beacon in the middle of the
table and almost at once it drew Castlebar from the snooker table.

Harriet, from where she sat, could see his
figure wavering through the shadows, drooping and edging round the tables,
coming with cautious purpose towards the bottle, like an animal that keeps to
windward of its prey. He paused a couple of yards from the table and Angela,
knowing he was there, smiled to herself.

Though their friendship seemed to have sprung up
fully grown, he edged forward with sly diffidence, still unable to believe in
his good fortune. And, Harriet thought, he might well be diffident for it was
beyond her to understand what Angela saw in him.

Harriet was not the only one critical of this
middle-aged teacher-poet who had the broken-down air of a man to whom money
spent on anything but drink and cigarettes was money wasted. As they observed
his circuitous approach, people murmured together, their faces keen with
curiosity and disapproval. When he made the last few feet towards her, Angela
jerked her head round and laughed as though he had pulled off a clever trick.

'H-h-hello, there!' he stammered, trying to
sound hearty. 'Welcome. Sit beside me. Have a drink.' Doing as he was bid, Castlebar
made a deprecating noise, mumbling: 'Must let me put something in the kitty.'

'No. My treat.'

Castlebar did not argue. Taking whisky into his
mouth, he held it there, moving it round his gums in ruminative appreciation,
then let it slide slowly down his throat. After this, he went through his usual
ritual of placing a cigarette packet squarely in front of him, one cigarette
propped ready to hand so there need be no interval between smokes. As he
concentrated on getting the cigarette upright, Angela smiled indulgently. All
set, he raised his thick, pale eyelids and they exchanged a long, meaningful look.

Angela whispered, 'Any news?'

'I had a cable. She says she'll get back by hook
or by crook.'

They were talking of Castlebar's wife who had
gone on holiday to England and been marooned there by the outbreak of war. The
threat of her return hung over Angela who said, 'But surely she won't make it?'

Castlebar giggled: 'S-s-she's a p-p-pretty
ruthless bitch. If anyone can do it, she will.' He appeared to take pride in
having such a wife and Angela, raising her brows, turned from him until he made
amends.

'Don't worry. She'll tread on anyone's face to
get what she wants, but it won't work this time. Why should they send her out?'
Castlebar slid his hand across the table towards her and she bent and gave it a
rapid kiss.

Their enclosed intimacy embarrassed Simon, who
looked away, while Harriet, feeling excluded, was envious and depressed. Guy
could be affectionate but he never lost consciousness of the outside world. It
was always there for him and its claim on him had caused dissension between
them.

Leaving Angela and Castlebar to their communion,
she asked Simon about his army life. When they had climbed the pyramid
together, they had sat at the top and talked of the war in the desert. He had said,
'I don't know what it's like out there,' but now he knew and she asked him how
he spent his days.

'Not doing much. We're so far from the main
positions, there seems no point in being there.'

'But of course there is a point?'

'Oh yes. I asked our sergeant once. I said,
"What's the use, our being here, bored stiff and doing nothing?" and
he said, "What'd happen if we weren't here?" You can see what he
meant.'