Into Suez (30 page)

‘Keep your hair on.’

Off they went to look for Peg-Leg. When Joe tried to get up to make tracks, his beery head was swinging about and he threw up on the street.

His wife and the Jacobs woman arrived home a few minutes after Joe. Ailsa burst in through the back door, calling out Nia’s name excitedly, though it was dark and their daughter was in bed. Joe, busy taking off his socks, looked up from a job that had turned out to be quite an ordeal, since bending over increased his nausea. He stared at Ailsa, fuddled. Then he handed her the sweaty sock. As his lawful wife, she ought to have it. She took it from him. What the hell was she wearing? A skirt red as a slick of blood, some kind of wrap-around affair that showed her knees as she walked. A dark head in a white beret loomed in the doorway behind her. Mrs Jacobs’ cowlike eyes seemed somehow to precede their owner into the room – radiating intensity and busybody curiosity. How dare she make herself at home in his quarters? She hadn’t seen him.

‘Budge over, Ailsa darling. I’ve brought all the bags. How is my little Nia? … Oh, Joe. How nice to see you.’

Joe leapt to his feet, one sock on, one sock off, and saluted.

‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ he said.

‘Joe – oh don’t,’ Ailsa faltered.

‘Do you want me to go?’ asked the Wing Commander’s woman.

‘He’s had a few,’ Ailsa said, under her breath.

Joe continued standing stiffly to attention, holding the salute like a fucking
Heil Hitler
.

‘Stand easy, men,’ said Nia, in her nightgown. Her fingers gripped the place between her legs, as if to stop herself peeing. He had told her not to do that in company – they had both told her, more times than Joe cared to remember. She’d have to be smacked if she carried on like that. Like mother, like daughter.

Joe brought his hand down but when the darkie woman began to speak, he saluted again, barking, ‘Sah!’

‘Joe, dear,’ said Irene. ‘Do come through and sit down. I’ll make a nice cup of coffee. Mrs Jacobs is going home now, she’s just run Ailsa home from their interesting trip, hasn’t she? Nia’s been as good as gold. But poor Joe came back umpty. Nia, say hallo to your Mummy and then it’s up the stairs to beddy-lands.’

Joe allowed himself to be led as far as the kitchen door; then turned to watch his wife, face like a Belisha beacon, crouch to hug and kiss their daughter. But Nia pursed her lips in a pet, thrust her head back. Then she dodged past her mother and shot headlong at the Jacobs woman. Nia shoved at her, punching her head into her belly, beating at her with her fists, propelling her out of the back door. Ha! thought Joe, that’s wiped the smile off your ugly mug, Missus. Not a word had been spoken. Nia shut the door and stamped up the stairs. From the sitting room window Joe saw the intruder falter down the path. The headlights of her sports car went on. She started up the engine and sat for a moment before driving off.

Ailsa said, ‘Joe darling, let me explain.’

‘Is this individual speaking to me?’ he asked Irene.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ailsa. ‘The opportunity came up.
You weren’t here to ask. There was no harm in it.’

‘Oh,
the opportunity
! Take off my sock,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Take it off. My other sock.’ He jabbed his foot in her direction and wriggled the toes. ‘Now. Sock. Take it off. Jump to it, woman.’

‘Don’t be soft,’ she said. ‘I’m not taking off your sock. You’ve been drinking. You ought to go to bed.’

‘Me go to bed?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You. Sleep it off, then we can talk.’

Irene brought coffee, which he accepted. ‘Order her to remove my sock, Irene,’ he said.

‘Oh come here, I’ll take it off,’ said Irene, and did.

‘Now give it to her.’

Irene dithered. Ailsa snatched the sock out of her hand and took it into the kitchen. When she returned, he caught a shushing look on Irene’s face as she informed Ailsa, ‘He came home badly sick the day before yesterday. He’s really been though it. Not himself at all.’

‘Oh no,’ said Ailsa. ‘I’m terribly sorry. Joe, how rotten for you. How awful that I wasn’t here to take care of you.’

‘Never mind. I had
her
. And toad in the hole. Whassamatter?’ he demanded as his wife flushed and flinched. ‘I’m not talking dirty, boy. Not toad in
her
hole, I said toad in
the
hole, batter is that, sausage, great British dish, mind, none fucking better. I leave the toadholing to
you
, Ailsa.’

He heaved himself up and barged past her through the door, churning, haywire, up the stairs, into their bed, out like a blown match.

‘Bore da
, Irene.
Bore da
, Ailsa.
Bore da
, Nia
fach
,’ he greeted the three of them, where they sat in a row, sewing. See-No-Evil, Hear-No-Evil, Speak-No Evil. A flowery curtain was draped between them over their laps. Three faces looked up warily and he read their expressions:
what mood’s he in now?
They all smiled uncertainly. ‘What’s up with the curtain?’ he asked.

‘Somebody not a million miles from here swinging on it,’ said Ailsa. ‘Being a chimp in the jungle, apparently.’

‘We can’t go swinging on the curtains now, can we, girlie?’ he said mildly to his daughter. ‘They’re not our curtains. Nothing here is ours, see.’

A corporate sigh of relief seemed to be exhaled: the storm was past. They could breathe again. Ailsa stuck her needle in the pincushion. ‘It’s a clean rip, so we can mend it pretty well.’

‘Still have to pay for it when we go,’ he said.

Ailsa said, ‘Joe, I’m so sorry about everything. I truly
am. What can I get for your breakfast? I don’t suppose you’re up to fried, are you?’

‘A soft boiled egg went down very nicely yesterday,’ Irene informed her.

‘Oh yes, he likes eggs.’

‘Slice of toast will do me. And plenty of tea.’

Over the tea, he apologised to the women for being narky the night before. A bit tight he’d been. Ailsa always
over-buttered
toast, he thought, as she handed him the plate. Of course he’d never told her this but accepted her offerings as the best, because they came from her. She was making up for years of rationing of course. But now he scraped off the excess of her generosity, leaving it on the side of the plate. He saw that she observed his action and took it silently to heart. But genuinely he meant no rebuff and no odious comparison with Irene’s buttering talents. Ailsa had exchanged the sluttish red skirt for the quiet frock with the blue anemones. Joe politely asked after her trip to Jordan.

‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘Palestine. I do wish you’d been there, Joe.’

‘We could have gone any time you wanted. It’s only a few hours.’

‘I know. I never thought.’

‘Never mind. Tell me about it.’

Ailsa gabbled something about the problems of the Middle East. About Zionism, it was so important for us all to understand the injustice … the crime Israel had committed, the crime that
was
Israel. For they’d all been taken in by Zionist propaganda. Mona needed to visit the frontier, to talk to people, to see for herself the Palestinian refugee camps, to try to contact relatives of hers she had not heard from since
al-Naqba
, the
Catastrophe. Ailsa seemed to think she was a delegate on a diplomatic mission.

‘So I said I’d go with her, Joe. I’m sorry that upsets you. It was important.’

‘How interesting,’ said Joe. The film was rolling. Ailsa was lying in her apricot nightie, the Jacobs bastard sliding the straps off one shoulder.
For Jacob,
he thought,
is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.

‘Yes, it was interesting, very interesting.’

‘So what stands out for you, Ailsa?’

‘Stands out?’

‘Where did you sleep, for instance?’

Irene said she would go upstairs. She’d take her tea up there and leave them in peace to have their discussion. She held out her hand to Nia, who wouldn’t leave and denied being a poppet. She carried on pinging a row of glasses on the sideboard with her fingernail.

‘And where did Wing Commander Jacobs stay?’

‘Oh,
he
didn’t come. Of course not. It was just me and Mona. We stayed at a small hotel. I paid my own way. It wasn’t expensive.’

Brittle tones, cold stares. Ailsa didn’t know him at all, Joe thought. As if he’d resent honouring his wife’s bills. Nia piped up:
Zagazig!
she chanted.
Zigazagazig!
On and on, louder and louder, until, moaning I’m bored, she hurled herself down and started rolling round the room.

‘Don’t, Nia,’ said Ailsa. ‘Don’t be naughty now. Don’t spoil yourself.’

‘Be naughty, Nia, that’s fine,’ Joe said quietly. ‘After all, why not? Your mummy is naughty.’

‘You’re naughty, Mami! You’re naughty!’ Nia took up the chant.

He went into the kitchen, shaking, an unlit fag between his lips, and began to fill a watering can in the sink. His plants were looking parched, though he reminded himself that he’d told Ailsa not to bother to heave that heavy can around but leave everything for when he came back. She didn’t need to take him at his word, for Christ’s sake.
Zagazig
.

As he carried the water out, he realised that the sprinkler at the end was missing.

‘Nia,’ he said through the window, ‘where the hell’s the sprinkler?’

Nia paused in the middle of a purple tantrum, relaxing her body long enough to ask, quite rationally, ‘What sprinkler?’ and to deny that she’d gone off with it.

‘Nia, you will have a smacked bottom if you go on like this,’ he said. ‘Now where’s the sprinkler?’

Off she went again, resisting Ailsa’s attempt to raise her, drumming sandalled feet against her mother’s arms. Joe barged through, wrenched Nia up by one arm and whacked her on the bottom. Hard, once, twice and – one for luck. The blows resounded like thunderclaps. Silence. Then an ear-splitting shriek, accompanied by a stare of disbelieving hurt. The little tyke had had it coming for months. He ought to have been firmer with her from the word go. But because she was a girl, he’d always treated her as fragile; worn kid gloves. Well, no more. She’d better watch her step. He left them to it, shutting the window to muffle the rising siren of Nia’s rage. Then it distanced and he could hear Irene distracting her upstairs.

Ailsa came out. She touched his arm lightly. ‘Could we talk properly, Joe? You didn’t need to hit her, by the way.
Hit me if you need to take it out on someone. It’s my fault if it’s anyone’s.’

He didn’t hit women, he reminded her. But children had to be taught a lesson. Once and for all. He listened expressionlessly to Ailsa’s account of what had happened while he was away. Yes, on the whole he did believe her, as she quietly described meeting up with her pal, spending time with her, agreeing to the trip. Ailsa’s heart (he could see) was in her mouth. Simultaneously he observed her over his own shoulder, through the eyes of a smooth, distinguished-looking officer of outlandish ways and loose morals.
Zagazig
. He believed her when she said she had seen hardly anything of Jacobs – or of Blondie, except to say hallo – for they’d been away on ops, same thing as him, hadn’t they, and if he didn’t believe her, he could always check.

In his pocket lay the johnnie. He fingered it. His fingers know she’d been had by this bastard. His nerves tingled with the sheer shock of it.

The fuckers might very well have made home visits.

Ailsa admitted she should not have gone off with Mona like that, leaving Nia. And yet, she said, her forehead furrowing, she should have! she had to! Nia was fine, wasn’t she, with Irene. And anyway, Ailsa loved Mona. As a friend. Didn’t Joe love his friends?

Love? That was hardly the right word.

Yes it was, she said, it was a word for friendship.
Agape
, she said,
caritas
, as in St Paul, there were so many kinds of love. Love thy neighbour, she quoted.

‘Chalkie was my friend but family comes first,’ Joe told Ailsa, bending to deadhead the blackened chrysanthemums. ‘You can’t argue with that. Don’t try to argue.’

Yes, but it was not a competition, she urged, crouching beside him. Tilting her face up in appeal. Resting her hand on his bare forearm. He had nothing whatever to fear from Mona, she said. Nothing in the world.

‘So what’s this?’ he asked straightening and diving his hand into his pocket, where the change jingled as he fished for the packet. Pressed it into her hand.

‘It’s a contraceptive,’ she faltered.

‘Ask me where I got it.’

‘Where?’

‘In Nia’s toy box, that’s where. In Nia’s toy box – a fucking rubber johnnie. So: is it yours?’

‘Is it
mine
?’ She tried to hand it back but he wouldn’t take it and allowed it to fall on to the earth between them. Ailsa bent and picked it up.

‘You idiot! Of course it isn’t mine. How could it be? I cannot believe we are having this conversation.’

They stared at one another. Then she said, ‘Is it perhaps
ours
, Joe, and she’s taken it from your cabinet?

‘No.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘The wrong sort.’

‘Then I have no idea.’

‘She said you slept in the Jacobs bungalow.’

Ailsa flushed. Joe saw he’d nailed her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We did. But not with Mona’s husband, for goodness’ sake! With Nia in the house? With Mona there? I know you’re jealous, Joe,’ she attacked. ‘I’ve always known
that
. That’s how you are. We took each other warts and all. But that’s not my wart, pal, that’s
yours.’

He grabbed a wrist as Ailsa turned away, holding it hard. The violent action lessened his violent feeling,
which turned into a soft throbbing of exquisite hurt along his veins.

‘So who did you sleep with?’

‘I shared a bed with Mona, if you must know. As I expect Nia told you. And it was no secret.’

‘Weren’t there enough beds in the house? Was there a bed shortage? Don’t they run to a camp bed?’

‘You are making an ass of yourself. We are
friends.’

‘Friends?’

‘It was for comfort.’

‘What did you need comforting for, for fuck’s sake?’

‘Let go my wrist. Let go. Now.’

‘Sorry.’

The skin on the inside of her arm was red where he’d gripped it. She rubbed it with her other hand but without making a big thing of it.

‘You just can’t keep up this thing with Mrs Jacobs, Ailsa. I thought you knew that.’

‘Perhaps
that
is what I need comforting for, Joe.’

For a moment he could see it. Ailsa’s good mind finding its equal. The Jacobs woman was in no way attractive to him: the heavy face and build, the swarthy skin. But he could see a foreign, exotic sort of elegance and seriousness in her. Intellect – a female egghead – and of course the music. That was the secret of it. At the concert in Ish, Joe had seen and felt the pianist’s charm. It flattered Ailsa that such a person, from the right side of the tracks, should have singled her out. And Ailsa was worthy of this, more than worthy of any Mona in the world. Mrs Jacobs had once been a refugee, which drew his wife’s pity, how could it fail to do so? In his new calm, he saw all this.

But she must know unequivocally that it had to end.

‘Darling Ailsa,’ he said.

‘Is it all right?’ She took his hand. ‘Will we be all right now? I’d never hurt you, Joe, Never in the world. Not like that.’

She began to speak about what they’d experienced at the border between Jordan and Israel, sharing it with him. Joe saw it all through Ailsa’s eyes and felt it through her heart: the two women standing with Arab families in Jordan staring across a mass of coiled barbed wire at another group in Israel, their blood kin and erstwhile nextdoor neighbours. Two Israeli border guards with guns looking on and Mona craning to see if her uncle and aunt were there, still not knowing if they were alive or dead. Asking after them across the wire; the people shaking their heads and the guide reminding her:
Please do not speak, it is forbidden to speak. The people over there will get into trouble, you see, if you get talking to them
. No food or clothing could be passed across. It was forbidden. All people might do was stand and look.

‘A line was drawn through Beit Safafa when the fighting stopped,’ Ailsa told Joe. ‘Half is in no man’s land, the other half in Jordan.’ He saw her calculate that he was hearing her out; that the more she spoke about political matters, the safer she would be.

When Israel declared itself a state, it expelled a million Arabs. Refugees were living in caves, she told him. Rotting on the hoof. In overcrowded concrete shanties. In mud huts. In camps, waterlogged or at low level in simmering heat by the Dead Sea, in conditions as bad as the German concentration camps.

Joe nodded. He refrained from asking what that had to do with Sergeant and Mrs Joseph Roberts. For an
intelligent woman, Ailsa was surprisingly credulous. She swallowed whole whatever one-sided story her pal fed her. Nobody deplored the Yids’ terrorism under the British Mandate as much as Joe. The stringing up and
booby-trapping
of the two English sergeants had been the actions of the lowest of the low. But there was another side to every story. Where were the Jewish concentration camp victims supposed to go if not to Israel? The bloody moon? The Bible told of the Jewish right to the Holy Land. This he had learnt at Libanus Chapel. It was an inalienable right. And in the end the Jews were Europeans and cultured. If they could do what they boasted and make the desert flower, good luck to them. A few Arabs were going to get hurt in the process. Then it would all settle down. But Joe did not propose to argue with Ailsa over this. Ailsa, who had been brainwashed by a stronger personality, would not thank him for pointing out the sentimentality of her position.

He said, ‘Do you remember when we arrived and we went through the inventory? There were all sorts of items we didn’t ever see back home. “Chamber Pots, Officers, For The Use Of” – do you remember those and the label? And how we laughed? The same backsides. Same piss. Different quality pots. That’s just how it is. And the roped off areas at public do’s? One enclosure for Air Marshalls and their wives, one for Wing Cos, another for Flight Lieutenants, right down to Aircraftsmen. It’s not so much that you can’t step over as that you don’t. Fraternisation, see.’

Ailsa did not reply. Her lip quivered. But Joe felt sure she had heard. They wandered round the garden, arms lightly round each other’s waists, bending in towards one
another, inspecting the plants, discussing the problem of Irene. Their hearts still beat up too high. He could feel his, intuit hers. Nia could be heard mindlessly chanting
Zagazig, Zigazag
in the house. Irene, who had been watching the couple from an upstairs window, withdrew smartly when she saw Joe look up, for how could the poor woman be other than disappointed that he had made it up with Ailsa?