The Balkan Trilogy (108 page)

He gathered up Harriet’s impedimenta and led her back to the Billiard Room where he switched on a central light, disclosing a confusion usually hidden beneath the gloom of day or the shadows of night.

As though scandalized by this, Miss Gladys Twocurry clicked her tongue.

Alan passed her without a glance. The billiard tables, with their stout legs and little crocheted ball-traps, had been pushed against the walls and covered with dust-sheets. The sheets, intended to protect the baize, had fallen awry. Unfiled papers were heaped on the green surface which was growing grey with dust. Beside the billiard tables there were dining tables, bureaux, military trestle-tables and card tables; and every surface was covered with letters, reports, news sheets, newspapers, maps and posters, all thrown pell-mell together and growing écru with age. An open bureau was filled with rolls of cartridge paper, made brittle by the summer heat, and as Alan swept them to the floor, they cracked like crockery and Miss Gladys clicked again, more loudly.

Alan said: ‘You can work here. If you need anything, let me know.’ He left the room.

Harriet, arranging her books and papers, was conscious of the Twocurrys behind her. Miss Mabel’s typewriter was still. Miss Gladys seemed not to breathe. Then, suddenly, Miss Gladys crossed the room and her personal smell, a smell like old mutton fat, filled the neighbourhood of Harriet’s desk. She was peering down at a copy of the
Mediterranean Pilot
which Harriet had opened on the table.

She asked severely: ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m working. I’ve been employed.’

‘Indeed! And what are you working at, may I ask?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’

‘
Indeed!
’ Miss Gladys’s head quivered with indignation. ‘Who employed you? Lord Pinkrose?’

‘I was taken on by Mr Frewen.’

‘Ah!’ Miss Gladys seemed to think she had uncovered a fault and, turning, went purposefully from the room.

Harriet waited apprehensively, knowing her apprehensions were absurd. If Pinkrose disapproved her, he could do no more than dismiss her. As he was not yet Director of Propaganda, he could not, as yet, do even that.

The door opened again. She could hear Pinkrose’s grunts and coughs and, glancing over her shoulder, she saw he had stopped at a safe distance from her and was viewing her as though to confirm whatever Miss Gladys had said.

‘Good evening, Lord Pinkrose,’ Harriet said.

He coughed and muttered: ‘Yes, yes,’ then went to a bookcase where he took down a book, opened it, fluttered the pages, clapped it to and returned it. He muttered several times: ‘Yes, yes,’ while Miss Gladys stood by hopefully and watched. Harriet returned to her work. Having dealt with several other books, Pinkrose left the bookcase and began rustling among the papers, several times saying: ‘Yes, yes,’ in an urgent tone, then suddenly he sped away. Miss Gladys let out her breath in an aggravated way. For the first time it occurred to Harriet that Pinkrose was as nervous of her as she was of him.

Next morning, soon after she arrived in the office, a military messenger rapped the door and came in with a note.

‘Bring it over here,’ Miss Gladys pointed imperiously to a spot on the floor beside her.

The messenger said: ‘It’s for Mrs Pringle.’

Harriet took the note and read: ‘Will you have lunch today?’ There was no signature. In the space for a reply, she wrote ‘Yes’ and handed back the paper. Miss Mabel thumped on unawares, but Miss Gladys watched with the incredulity of one who wonders how far insolence can go.

Charles Warden was at the side entrance, standing casually as though he had merely paused to reflect and would, in a moment, move away. When Harriet said: ‘Hello,’ he
appeared surprised and she said: ‘Someone invited me to lunch. I thought it might be you.’

‘You weren’t sure? It could be someone else?’

‘I do know other people.’

‘Of course,’ he agreed but his serious, speculative expression seemed critical of the fact. She laughed and his manner changed. He seemed to laugh at himself, and asked: ‘Where shall we go? Zonar’s?’

She said: ‘Yes,’ but she did not want to go to Zonar’s. It was the restaurant where Alan ate at mid-day, usually taking Yakimov with him. Ben Phipps also went there. Because of Charles’s good-looks and the current of understanding between them, she knew their friendship could be misunderstood. There was disloyalty to Guy in inviting such misunderstanding. But this was not easy to explain. Also, Guy had said he cared nothing for the suspicions of others, so why should she hesitate and shift and evade, and have guilt imposed upon her?

When Zonar’s came into view, it was Charles who hesitated: ‘Do you want to go there?’ he said. ‘We’ll probably run into people we know. Let’s go to the Xenia! The food’s still tolerable there.’

‘Yes, I’d like to see the Xenia.’

No one known to Guy ever went there. Harriet was stimulated by the thought of this expensive restaurant and when she found it dingy, the walls decorated in shades of brown with peacocks and women in ancient Egyptian poses, and hung with lamps of Lalique glass, she was disappointed.

The tables not already taken were reserved and Charles had to wait while the Head Waiter, unwilling to turn away an English officer, consulted his list and decided what could be done for them. In the end an extra table was set up close to the curtain that separated the restaurant from the famous Xenia
confiserie
where Major Cookson had bought his very small cakes.

Harriet said: ‘This place is a relic of the ’twenties.’

‘The wine is good,’ Charles said defensively.

Most of those present were businessmen but there were some officers, Greeks on leave or Englishmen from the Mission. The atmosphere was dull and though the wine was, as Charles said, good, the food, which imitated French food, seemed to Harriet much worse than the taverna stews.

To avoid Charles’s fixed regard, Harriet watched the comings and goings on the other side of the coffee-coloured chiffon curtains. The people who entered the shop, some furtively, some with nonchalance or aggressive rapidity, chose cakes which were handed to them on a plate with a little fork. However chosen, the cakes would be devoured with the greed of chronic deprivation. Harriet, brought to a state of nervous nausea by Charles’s proximity, had no appetite herself and she began to wonder what she was doing, fomenting a situation that reduced her to such a state.

She sat with a hand on the table and, feeling a touch, found Charles had stretched out his little finger and was pulling his fingernail along the edge of her palm.

‘Tell me why you were crying yesterday.’

‘I don’t know. Not for any reason, really. I suppose I was frightened.’

‘Of the raid? You know Athens hasn’t been bombed.’

‘The guns startled me.’

He gave his laugh, the laugh of a swindled man, that she now began to see was characteristic of him. He would not even pretend to accept her explanation. Her original dislike was roused again and she began to wish herself away. Once away, she would see no more of him.

An apathetic sense of failure came down between them. Charles looked sullen. She felt he was reproaching her for attracting him, then telling him nothing. He fixed her with his cold light-coloured eyes and asked: ‘How long have you been married?’

‘We married just before the war. Guy was home on leave.’

‘Had you known one another long?’

‘Only a few weeks.’

‘You married in haste?’

The questions were asked mockingly, almost derisively, and she gave her answers with the intention of annoying him: ‘Not really. I felt I had known him all my life.’

‘But did you? Did you know him?’

‘Yes, in a way.’

‘But not in every way?’

Knowing he was taking revenge for her refusal to confide in him, she felt her own power and answered composedly: ‘Not in every way. There are always things to be discovered about every human being.’

‘But you still think him wonderful?’

‘Yes. Too wonderful, perhaps. He imagines he can do everything for everyone.’

‘But not for you?’

‘He sees me as part of himself. He feels he does not need to do things for me.’

‘Are you satisfied with that state of affairs?’

People waiting for tables were queuing on the other side of the curtain and this gave her excuse to say: ‘Don’t you think we should go?’

‘You’ve hardly eaten anything.’

‘I’m not very hungry.’

Outside, in the bright, brief light of afternoon, with two hours of freedom before them, Charles asked: ‘What would you like to do now?’

The question was a testing-point and, from his tone, she saw he expected her to refer the question back to him. She said casually: ‘I’ve never been to the Lycabettos church. Let’s go up there.’

‘If you want to.’

He did not hide his resentment. Though he turned towards the hill, he made no pretence of interest in the excursion. She felt the distance between them and a bleak relief in not caring. The relationship would go no further.

She asked him about the possibility of a German attack. He gave an offhand answer: a German attack was ‘on the cards’. It had been from the first.

She said: ‘There is a rumour that the Germans are piling up armaments on the frontier.’

‘That rumour’s always going round.’

‘If there is no attack, what do you think will happen? Can the Greeks win?’

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. Greek ammunition is running out. They say present supplies won’t last two months.’

‘But surely we can send them ammunition?’

‘It would be no use. The Greek firearms were bought from Krupps. Our ammunition doesn’t fit.’

‘Can’t we send both guns and ammunition?’

He answered with laconic grimaces, speaking, she knew, out of an inner grimness, conceding her nothing: ‘We haven’t the guns to send. In Cairo our own men are wandering about doing nothing because we have no arms to give them. But even if we had all the rifles in the world, there’d still be the problem of transport.’

‘We can’t spare the ships?’

‘Our losses have been pretty heavy, you know!’

She gave him a sidelong glance and saw him sternly detached from her. She wondered if he were trying to frighten her and said appealingly: ‘Things can’t be as bad as that? Are you suggesting we might even lose the war?’

He gave his ironical laugh: ‘Oh, I imagine we’ll pull through somehow. We always do.’

The climb was a long one. The road ended at the terrace where the Patersons had their flat. Above that the path was rough. By the time they reached the church the sun was only just above the horizon and the whitewashed walls were tawny with the winter sunset. A chilly wind swept across the courtyard of the church. The place was deserted except for a boy who sold lemonade, and he was packing up his stall. Charles stood with an unforthcoming patience while Harriet leant against the wall and looked over the great sea of houses that ran into shadow against the new green of Hymettos. She turned and asked Charles if he had been before to the church.

He stared away from her. She thought he would not reply,
but after a moment he said he had been here at Easter when the Greeks made it a place of pilgrimage, carrying candles that could be seen from the distance like two lines of light, one passing up, the other down, the hill.

‘I suppose you saw the processions? The burial of Christ and the great resurrection procession on Easter Sunday?’

‘Of course.’

‘Will they hold them this year, do you think?’

‘They may, if things are going well.’ He answered unwillingly as though she were forcing him to give her information but when her questions stopped, he said: ‘The evzones are in Albania. The processions wouldn’t be much without them. On Easter Sunday they wear their full regalia. You know – fustanella and tasselled caps and slippers with pompoms,’ he suddenly laughed. ‘The processions end up in the square … the girls on the hotel terrace had those sparkler things and they were shaking them down on the men’s skirts, trying to set them on fire …’

She smiled and put out her hand to him: ‘If they hold the processions this year, we might see them together.’

He took her hand but there was still something wrong. Staring down at the ground, he said: ‘This is only a temporary posting. I probably won’t be here at Easter. You do realize that, don’t you?’

‘No, I didn’t realize …’

She moved away from the wall. The view had become meaningless. She noticed how cold the wind was; and the sun had almost set. They began walking down the steps.

While she had contemplated a long, developing relationship, he had, she now saw, been obsessed by the knowledge that their time was short. She had had an illusion of leisurely intimacy, imagining them trapped together here, likely to share the same fate. It had all been fantasy. Whatever their fate would be, he would not share it. Guy and she might not save themselves, but they were free to try.

He was a different order of being. His function was not to preserve his own life but protect the lives of others. In this
present situation, he might run no greater risk than she herself; he was not more likely to lose his life – and yet, against reason, glancing sideways in the twilight, she saw him poetic, trans-figured, like one of those sacrificial youths of the last war whose portraits had haunted her childhood. With his unmarred, ideal looks, he was not intended for life. It was not his part to survive. She was required to live but he was a romantic figure, marked down for death.

And the relationship was urgent.

It was not quite dark when they reached the bottom of the road. Lights were on in the shops but the black-out curtains had not been pulled across. They passed a small grocery-shop with empty shelves. From habit she looked in, just in case there was something for sale. She saw nothing but a jar of pickled cucumbers.

As they crossed the road to the Grande Bretagne, Charles said: ‘Will you meet me again later? We could have supper at the Corinthian.’

The request was peremptory, almost a command, but she had to resist: ‘I’m going to Guy’s rehearsal.’