Men at Arms (14 page)

‘What are our plans for the evening?’ 

‘Oh good, are there plans? I quite forgot. Tommy’s just left and I was thinking of a lonely early night, dinner in bed with the cross-word. I’d
much
rather have plans. Shall I come along to you? Everything looks rather squalid here.’ So she came to the six-guinea chaperon sitting-room and Guy ordered cocktails. 

‘Not as cosy as mine,’ she said, looking round the rich little room. 

Guy sat beside her on the sofa. He put his arm on the back, edged towards her, put his hand on her shoulder. 

‘What’s going on?’ she asked in unaffected surprise.

‘I just wanted to kiss you.’ 

‘What an odd way to go about it. You’ll make me spill my drink. Here.’ She put her glass carefully on the table at her side, took hold of him by the ears and gave him a full firm kiss on either cheek. 

‘Is that what you want?’ 

‘Rather like a French general presenting medals.’ He kissed her on the lips. ‘That’s what I want.’ 

‘Guy, are you tight?’

‘No.’ 

‘You’ve been spending the day at that revolting Bellamy’s. Admit.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Then of course you’re tight.’ 

‘No. It’s just that I want you. D’you mind?’ 

‘Oh, nobody ever minds about being wanted. But it’s rather unexpected.’ 

The telephone bell rang.

‘Damn,’ said Guy. 

The telephone was on the writing-table. Guy rose from the sofa and lifted the receiver. Familiar tones greeted him.

‘Hullo, old man, Apthorpe here. I thought I’d just give you a ring. Hullo, hullo. That is Crouchback, isn’t it?’ 

‘What d’you want?’

‘Nothing special. I thought I could do with a change from Southsand so I ran up to town for the day. I got your address out of the Leave Book. Are you doing anything this evening?’

‘Yes.’ 

‘You mean, you have an engagement?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘I couldn’t join you anywhere?’

‘No’ 

‘Very Well, Crouchback. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’ Huffily: ‘I can tell when I’m not wanted.’ 

‘It’s a rare gift.’ 

‘I don’t quite get you, old man’

‘Never mind. See you tomorrow.’

‘Things seem a bit flat in town.’

‘I should go and have a drink.’ 

‘I daresay I shall. Forgive me if I ring off now.’ 

‘Who was that?” asked Virginia. ‘Why were you so beastly to him?’ 

‘He’s just a chap from my regiment. I didn’t want him butting in.’ 

‘Some horrible member at Bellamy’s?’

‘Not at all like that.’

‘Mightn’t he have been rather fun?’ 

‘No.’

Virginia had now moved to an arm-chair. 

‘What were we talking about?’ she asked.

‘I was making love to you.’ 

‘Yes. Let’s think of something different for a change.’

‘It is a change. For me, anyway.’ 

‘Darling, I haven’t had time to get my breath from Tommy. Two husbands in a day is rather much.’ 

Guy sat down and stared at her. 

‘Virginia, did you ever love me at all?’ 

‘But of course, darling. Don’t you remember? Don’t look so gloomy. We had lovely times together, didn’t we? Never a cross word.
Quite
different to Mr Troy.’ 

They talked of old times together. First of Kenya. The group of bungalows that constituted their home, timber-built, round stone chimneys and open English hearths, furnished with wedding presents and good old pieces of furniture from the lumber-rooms at Broome; the estate, so huge by European standards, so modest in East Africa, the ruddy earth roads, the Ford van and the horses; the white-gowned servants and their naked children always tumbling in the dust and sunshine round the kitchen quarters; the families always on the march to and from the native reserves, stopping to beg for medicine; the old lion Guy shot among the mealies. Evening bathes in the lake, dinner parties in pyjamas with their neighbours. Race Week in Nairobi, all the flagrant, forgotten scandals of the Muthaiga Club, fights, adulteries, arson, bankruptcies, card-sharping, insanity, suicides, even duels – the whole Restoration scene re-enacted by farmers, eight thousand feet above the steaming seaboard. 

‘Goodness it was fun,’ said. Virginia. ‘I don’t think anything has been quite such fun since. How things just do happen to one!’ 

In February 1940 coal still burned in the grates of six-guinea hotel sitting-rooms. Virginia and Guy sat in the fire-light and their talk turned to gentle matters, their earliest meeting, their courtship, Virginia’s first visit to Broome, their wedding at the Oratory, their honeymoon at Santa Dulcina. Virginia sat on the floor with her, head on the sofa, touching Guy’s leg. Presently Guy slid down beside her. Her eyes were wide and amorous. 

‘Silly of me to say you are drunk,’ she said. 

It was all going as Guy had planned, and, as though hearing his unspoken boast, she added: ‘It’s no good planning anything,’ and she said again : ‘Things just happen to one.’ 

What happened then was a strident summons from the telephone. 

‘Let it ring,’ she said. 

It rang six times. Then Guy said: ‘Damn. I must answer it.’ 

Once again he heard the voice of Apthorpe: 

‘I’m doing what you advised, old man; I’ve had a drink. Rather more than one as it happens.’ 

‘Good.
Continuez, mon cher
. But for Christ’s sake don’t bother me.’ 

‘I’ve met some very interesting chaps. I thought perhaps you’d like to join us.’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Still engaged?’

‘Very much so.’ 

‘Pity. I’m sure you’d like these chaps. They’re in Ack-Ack.’

‘Well, have a good time with them. Count me out.’

‘Shall I ring up later to see if you can give your chaps the slip?’ 

‘No’ 

‘We might all join forces.’ 

‘No.’ 

‘Well, you’re missing a very interesting palaver.’

‘Goodnight.’ 

‘Good night, old man.’ 

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Guy, turning from the telephone.

‘While you’re there you might order some more to drink,’ said Virginia. 

She rose to her, feet and arranged herself suitably for the waiter’s arrival. ‘Better put on the lights,’ she said. 

They sat opposite one another on either side of the fire, estranged and restless. The cocktails were a long time in coming. Virginia said: ‘How about some dinner?’ 

‘Now?’ 

‘It’s half past eight.’ 

‘Here?’ 

‘If you like.’ 

He sent for the menu and they ordered. There was half an hour in which waiters came and went, wheeling a table carrying an ice bucket, a hot-plate, eventually food. The sitting-room suddenly seemed more public than the restaurant below. All the fire-side intimacy was dissipated. Virginia said: ‘What are we going to do afterwards?’ 

‘I can think of something.’ 

‘Can you indeed?’ 

Her eyes were sharp and humorous, all the glowing expectation and acceptance of an hour ago quite extinguished. Finally the waiter removed all his apparatus; the chairs on which they had sat at dinner were back against the wall; the room looked just as it had when it was first’ thrown open to him, costly and uninhabited. Even the fire, newly banked up with coal and smoking darkly, had the air of being newly lit. Virginia leaned on the chimney piece with a cigarette training a line of smoke between her fingers. Guy came to stand by her and she moved very slightly away. 

‘Can’t a girl have time to digest?’ she said. 

Virginia had a weak head for wine. She had drunk rather freely at dinner and there was a hint of tipsiness in her manner, which, he knew from of old, might at any minute turn to truculence. In a minute it did. 

‘As long as you like,’ said Guy. 

‘I should just think so. You take too much for granted.’

‘That’s an absolutely, awful expression;’ said Guy. ‘Only tarts use it.’ 

‘Isn’t that rather what you think I am?’

‘Isn’t it rather what you are?’ 

They were both aghast at what had happened and stared at one another, wordless. Then Guy said: ‘Virginia, you know I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I must have gone out of my mind. Please forgive me. Please forget it.’ 

‘Go and sit down,’ said Virginia. ‘Now tell me just what you did mean.’ 

‘I didn’t mean anything at all.’ 

‘You had a free evening and you thought I was a nice easy pick-up. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?’ 

‘No. As a matter of fact I’ve been thinking about you ever since we met after Christmas. That’s why I came here. Please believe me, Virginia.’ 

‘And anyway what do you know about picking up tarts? If I remember our honeymoon correctly, you weren’t so experienced then. Not a particularly expert performance as I remember it.’ 

The moral balance swung sharply up and tipped. Now Virginia had gone too far, put herself in the wrong. There was another silence until she said: ‘I was wrong in thinking the army had changed you for the better. Whatever your faults in the old days you weren’t a cad. You’re worse than Augustus now.’ 

‘You forget I don’t know Augustus.’

‘Well, take it from me he was a monumental cad.’

A tiny light gleamed in their dankness, a pin-point in each easy tear which swelled in her eyes and fell.

‘Admit I’m not as bad as Augustus.’ 

‘Very little to choose. But he was fatter. I’ll admit that.’ 

‘Virginia, for God’s sake don’t let’s quarrel. It’s my last chance of seeing you for I don’t know how long.’ 

‘There you go again. The warrior back from the wars. “I take my fun where I find it.”’ 

‘You know I didn’t mean that.’

‘Perhaps you didn’t.’ 

Guy was beside her again with his hands on her. ‘Don’t let’s be beastly?’ 

She looked at him, not loving yet, but without any anger; sharp and humorous again. 

‘Go back and sit down,’ she said, giving him one friendly kiss. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet. Perhaps I do look like an easy pick-up. Lots of people seem to think so, anyway. I suppose I shouldn’t complain. But I can’t understand you, Guy, not at all. You were never one for casual affairs. I can’t somehow believe you are now.’ 

‘I’m not. This isn’t.’ 

‘You used to be so strict and pious. I rather liked it in you. What’s happened to all that?’ 

‘It’s still there. More than ever. I told you so when we first met again.’ 

‘Well, what would your priests say about your goings-on tonight; picking up a notorious divorcée in an hotel?’

‘They wouldn’t mind. You’re my wife.’

‘Oh, rot.’ 

‘Well, you asked what the priests would say. They’d say: “Go ahead.”’ 

The light that had shone and waxed in their blackness suddenly snapped out as though at the order of an air-raid warden. 

‘But this is horrible,’ said Virginia.

Guy was taken by surprise this time. ‘What’s horrible?’ he said. 

‘It’s absolutely disgusting. It’s worse than anything Augustus or Mr Troy could ever dream of. Can’t you see, you pig, you?’ 

‘No,’ said Guy in deep, innocent sincerity. ‘No, I don’t see.’ 

‘I’d far rather be taken for a tart. I’d rather have been offered five pounds to do something ridiculous in high heels or drive you round the room in toy harness or any of the things they write about in books.’ Tears of rage and humiliation were flowing unresisted. ‘I thought you’d taken a fancy to me again and wanted a bit of fun for the sake of old times. I thought you’d chosen me specially, and by God you had. Because I was the only woman in the whole world your priests would let you go to bed with. That was my attraction. You wet, smug, obscene, pompous, sexless, lunatic pig.’  

Even in this discomfiture Guy was reminded of his brawl with Trimmer. 

She turned to leave him. Guy sat frozen. On the silence left by her strident voice there broke a sound more strident still. While her hand was on the-door-knob, she instinctively paused at the summons. For the third tune that evening the telephone bell sang out between them. 

‘I say, Crouchback, old man, I’m in something of a quandary. I’ve just put a man under close arrest.’ 

‘That’s a rash thing to do. 

‘He’s a civilian.’ 

‘Then you can’t.’

‘That, Crouchback, is what the prisoner maintains. I hope you aren’t going to take his part.’ 

‘Virginia, don’t go.’ 

‘What’s that? I don’t get you, old man. Apthorpe here. Did you say, it was “No go”?’

Virginia went. Apthorpe continued. 

‘Did you speak or was it just someone on the line? Look here, this is a serious matter. I don’t happen to have my King’s Regulations with me. That’s why I’m asking for your help. Ought I to go out and try and collect an NCO and some men for prisoner’s escort in the street? Not so easy in the blackout, old man. Or can I just hand the fellow over to the civilian police?… I say, Crouchback, are you listening? I don’t think you quite appreciate that this is an official communication. I am calling on you as an officer of His Majesty’s Forces …’

Guy hung up the receiver and from the telephone in his bedroom gave instructions that he was taking no more calls that night, unless by any chance he was rung up from Number 650 in the hotel.

He went to bed and lay restless, half awake, for half the night. But the telephone did not disturb him again. 

Next day when he met Apthorpe at the train he said: ‘You got out of your trouble last night?’

‘Trouble, old man?’ 

‘You telephoned to me, do you remember?’ 

‘Did I? Oh, yes, about some point of military law. I thought you might be able to help.’ 

‘Did you solve the problem?’ 

‘It blew over, old man. It just blew over.’ 

Presently he said: ‘Not wishing to be personal, may I ask what’s happened to your moustache?’

‘It’s gone.’ 

‘Exactly. Just what I mean.’

‘I had it shaved off.’ 

‘Did you? What a pity. It suited you, Crouchback. Suited you very well.’