The Balkan Trilogy (111 page)

Maria, played by Yakimov, was met with unbelieving silence. Wearing false eyelashes, a blond wig, a print dress and sun-bonnet, he looked like a wolf disguised as Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, but a wolf imitating outrageous, salacious girlhood. When he tripped to the footlights, put forefinger to chin and curtsied, a howl rose from the back of the hangar. The men, who had respectfully applauded the real women, were released into a furore of bawdry by the travesty of femininity. Yakimov acknowledged the shouts and whistles by fluttering his eyelashes. The howls were renewed. A full three minutes passed before anyone could speak.

Alan, a monstrous and sombre mother-figure, opened the play, saying: ‘You have not been well of late, Maria dear! What ails thee, child?’ to which Maria, in a light epicene voice, coyly replied: ‘Something strange has happened to me, mother dear.’ This produced a stampede over which could be heard cries of ‘Watch it, girl’, ‘Up them stairs’, and ‘Meet me behind the hangar and I’ll see what I can do’.

The text, concocted by the players themselves, had been bawdy enough in its original, but under the stimulus of rehearsals, much more had been added. While Yakimov held the stage, there was a cross-talk of ribaldry between actors and audience. Maria’s violent death brought a sense of loss to both.

Her burial by William Corder, played by Ben Phipps, was followed in tense silence. Phipps made heavy weather of digging the grave but filling it in, he said: ‘This is easier work than the other,’ and the tension lifted. Someone shouted: ‘Don’t forget to camouflage it,’ and uproar broke out again. The villain, peering villainously through his spectacles, found he had lost his pistol. Then a terrible realization came: he had buried it with the body. The audience groaned. Someone asked: ‘Did you sign for it, chum?’ Corder, lacking courage to reopen the grave, sloped off.

In the next act Corder, splendidly attired in a frock coat, his top-hat balanced on his arm, stood posed beside a potted palm. ‘Well, here I am in London, and all is well,’ he told the audience; but it was not well for long. Guy, stating that he was a Bow Street Runner, visited Corder and extended evidence of guilt: the pistol found in the grave. Corder repudiated it. In a rich voice of doom Guy declared: ‘Here are your initials on the butt: W.C.’ The rest was lost in catcalls. Corder, on the gallows, the rope about his neck, was permitted to make a last defiant speech. Not a sound came from the audience. Purged of pity and terror, it had shouted itself mute.

A party was given for the visitors in the officers’ mess. Harriet had seen Charles Warden in one of the front seats. Not knowing whether he had joined the party or not, she kept her back to the room, feeling his presence behind her while she listened to Mrs Brett. Mrs Brett, having gathered Surprise and the other pilots about her, wished to make evident how much she knew of their flying conditions. ‘It’s disgraceful the way they won’t let you have an airstrip near the frontier. That long haul – 200 miles, isn’t it? – and all that snow
and heavy cloud! No wonder the squadron’s falling below strength.’

Surprise gave his carefree laugh: ‘Is it falling below strength?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Mrs Brett assured him. ‘And I’m told there’s a shortage of spare parts.
Is
there a shortage of spare parts?’

‘We manage.’

‘Perhaps you do, but it’s a serious situation.’ Mrs Brett ducked her head in disgust but Surprise, an aristocrat of war from whom nothing could be demanded but his life, laughed again.

There was a touch on Harriet’s arm. Prepared for it, she turned and faced Charles with a sociable smile. ‘How did you enjoy
Maria Marten
?’ she asked.

‘Well … it was very funny. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.’

‘Not even at school?’

‘Certainly not at school. I want to apologize – I could not come to luncheon that Sunday. Something kept me. I would have telephoned but the exchange could not find your number.’

‘We have no number.’

‘I had to stand by, I’m afraid. Someone flew in from Cairo H.Q.’

‘Someone important?’

‘Very important.’

‘I suppose I mustn’t ask who?’

‘I’d better not say; though I imagine everyone’ll know soon enough.’

‘Is something happening?’

‘It looks like it. Will you meet me tomorrow?’

‘You mean you’ll tell me then?’

‘I can’t.’ He was annoyed by her flippancy and said: ‘I may not be here much longer.’

‘Where will you go? Back to Cairo?’

‘No. Will you have lunch tomorrow?’

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘The day after, then?’

‘I would rather not.’

As he began to argue, she slipped past him and went to Guy who, relaxed and genial, was entertaining the senior officers with a description of the
Maria Marten
rehearsals. He put an arm round her shoulder and introduced her with pride: ‘My wife.’

She looked back to where she had left Charles, but he was not there. She could not see him anywhere in the room. Her spirits dropped. The party had lost its buoyancy. She felt it was time to go home.

When Toby Lush entered the Billiard Room, Miss Gladys tittered flirtatiously: ‘Why, Mr Lush, this is an honour! An honour indeed! We don’t get you in often, do we?’

Toby spluttered and sniggered, doing his best to respond in kind, but the sight of Harriet quite unmanned him and Miss Gladys had to ask: ‘Are you wanting his lordship?’

‘Um, um, um.’ Toby seemed not to know what he wanted. To gain time, he champed on his pipe, but the question had to be answered and he mumbled: ‘Perhaps he’d give me a minute – if he’s not too busy, that is.’

‘Sit down, do. I’ll see how things are in the inner office.’

Miss Gladys went off and Toby sat on the edge of Harriet’s desk: ‘Didn’t know you worked here. Employed by old Pinkers, eh?’

‘No. Alan Frewen.’

‘Ah!’

Harriet had not spoken to Toby or Dubedat since the School closed, but had heard they were working for Cookson and had seen them driving round Athens in the Delahaye.

She asked if they had given up their flat.

‘It gave us up. The old soul rented it from Archie Callard. Archie wanted it back, worse luck, but now he’s got it, he doesn’t live in it. He’s always at Phaleron. But he’s sick of Athens. He says he wants to do something big … go to Cairo, get into the war, join the Long Range Desert Group. The Major’s working on it.’

‘What can the Major do?’

‘
The Major!
He can do anything.’

‘But he can’t produce transport where there isn’t any.’

‘Don’t you be so sure. Planes come here from Cairo. If someone very important wanted to go back on one, he could wangle it.’

‘Is Archie Callard as important as that?’

‘No, but the Major is. And there’s no knowing what Archie may do! He’s talking of starting a private army.’

‘Are there private armies these days?’

‘’Course there are. Plenty of them.’

‘I hear you’re employed by the Major?’

‘We help a bit. There’s not much staff at Phaleron. The chauffeur’s gone, so I have taken over. The Major’s very decent. He’s given us the flat over the garage.’

‘What does Dubedat do?’

‘Helps around.’ Toby lowered his voice as though disclosing something shameful: ‘The old soul does a bit of gardening, cleans silver, makes the beds. The other day the butler told him to wash the hall tiles. Bit of a come-down, eh? Man like that washing tiles! If he’d had his rights, he’d have been Director. Can’t get over it. Disgraceful, the way the old soul’s been treated!’

Bleak and brooding, Toby stared at the floor until Miss Gladys reappeared. ‘Come along,’ she said, and rising and projecting himself in one movement, Toby nearly went down on his face.

Alan had always described the food at the Academy as ‘execrable’, but the Sunday on which he invited the Pringles to luncheon promised to be a special occasion. He would not explain further, having no wish to raise hopes that might not be fulfilled.

Walking between showers up the wide, grey, windy Vasilissis Sofias, Guy talked exuberantly about a new production of the revue that was to be bigger, funnier, and better dressed, and staged in Athens on behalf of the Greek war
effort. The times were gloomy but once again Guy had escaped from them.

There were no victories now. The bells had ceased to ring. The Athenians, living under conditions that resembled those of a protracted siege, were bored with the present and saw little to cheer them in the future. The Greeks were bogged down in the mountains. They had come to a stop on the Albanian coast. Some said they had given up hope of taking Valona. The men were exhausted. There was no food. Ammunition was running out.

Turning off towards the Academy, Harriet looked into the forecourt of the military hospital and saw the wounded still dragging round the wet asphalt square.

Guy said: ‘We’ll have to improve our theme song. I don’t think its bad, mind you, but we can’t keep singing the same thing.’

‘I suppose not.’

February, that in other years held intimations of spring, this year prolonged the bitter weather. Suffering to a point beyond endurance, the men in the mountain snows complained that supplies were not coming to the front. The Athenians, ill-fed, chilled to the bone, had no supplies to send.

Harriet said: ‘They’ll have to accept a truce.’

‘What?’

‘Look at those men. How can the Greeks go on like this?’

Guy looked, his face contracting, and after a long pause said: ‘The British may be joining in.’

‘Nobody seems to want them.’

The rumour that British troops were already on their way had caused as much alarm as rejoicing, for people feared they would do no more than expedite a German attack.

‘Still,’ said Guy, ‘anything is better than this sort of stalemate.’

It was colder inside the Academy than out. A small wood fire had been lit in the common room but the damp hung like mist in the air. Most of the chairs were taken and the talk carried a surprising intonation of cheer. Alan had a bottle of
ouzo on his table and he started filling the glasses as soon as he saw Guy and Harriet cross the room.

‘So it
is
a special occasion!’ Harriet said.

‘It is,’ Alan agreed; and when they were seated and warmed by the ouzo, he told them that one of the inmates, a man called Tennant, had been promised a piece of beef by an officer on a visiting cruiser. ‘The promise,’ said Alan, ‘led to some slight disagreement. Miss Dunne, as usual, tried to boss the show. Before the beef had even arrived, she stuck a notice on the board saying that this Sunday guests would not be allowed. I appealed to Tennant who, after all, should be the one to decide. He said: “Ask whomsoever you like. The beef may not materialize. And if it does, it’ll probably be bitched by that God-awful cook.”’

Miss Dunne, defeated, sat beside the fire, her gaze on a book, apparently aloof from the famished anticipation that stirred the rest of the room.

Above the general animation Pinkrose’s voice, precise and scholarly, carried clearly from some distant corner. He, also, had a visitor, to whom he was describing the intention and content of his lecture on Byron.

Wondering if the visitor could be Miss Gladys Twocurry, Harriet said: ‘Do you think the younger Miss Twocurry has intentions towards Pinkrose?’

Alan nodded gravely: ‘I’m sure of it. And, you must agree, she would make a very toothsome Lady Pinkrose.’

Listening for the luncheon bell, they listened perforce to the Pinkrose monologue which persisted until it had silenced all about it. At last the bell sounded and a sigh went over the room. The inmates did their best to leave in good order, letting the women go ahead. When Miss Dunne saw she was not the only one of her sex, she hastened to be the first from the room. Harriet now had a sight of Pinkrose’s guest. It was Charles Warden.

The main meals at the Academy were taken round a table, as they had been when the diners were students with a common interest and lived as a family. Alan had said: ‘I’m afraid our
table talk wouldn’t be out of place in a Trappist refectory. Sometimes someone makes a mention of work but not, of course, when visitors are present. You are liable to meet with complete silence.’

The meal was served. Everyone – Diocletian not forgotten – received a slice of beef, overcooked and dry, but still beef; and the diners gave a few appreciative ‘hahs’ and ‘hums’. One man even went so far as to say: ‘
I say!
’ Pinkrose, respecting the traditional taciturnity, talked below his breath. Charles, attentive, kept his eyes lowered.

A salad came with the meat. Harriet examined the coarse, dark leaves and said: ‘They could be marguerite leaves.’ Alan handed her oil and vinegar. ‘Put on plenty,’ he advised. ‘It’s only the olive oil that keeps us alive,’ and Miss Dunne, sitting opposite, raised her brows.

Guy, not easily subdued, asked his neighbour if there were anything in the story that the British were about to intervene on the Greek front.

Stunned by the question, the man caught his breath and whispered: ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘No? I’ve heard that British troops are already disembarking on Lemnos.’

Miss Dunne, usually pink, grew pinker; then, unable to restrain herself, burst out: ‘If you’ve heard that, you’ve no right to repeat it.’

‘It’s being pretty widely repeated,’ Alan said, and tried to divert Guy by suggesting to him that Naxos would be a more likely half-way house for troops bound for the Piraeus.

‘But are they bound for the Piraeus?’ Guy asked. ‘They may go to Salonika.’

Miss Dunne, appalled by this discussion, gasped and goggled as though suffering strangulation; and Guy, observing her discomfort, leant towards her and asked with friendly interest: ‘What is it you do at the Legation?’

Her answer was immediate: ‘I’m not in the habit of discussing my work.’

Even for Guy, Harriet thought, that should be enough; but
far from it. Challenged by her awkwardness and vanity, he cajoled her as though she were a difficult student, telling her about the revue. There was to be a repeat performance and he suggested she might take part.

While he was talking, Miss Dunne wriggled so much her chair worked backwards until she was two foot or more from the table. When he paused for a reply, she gave her head a violent shake. Those nearby watched his tactics with apprehensive delight.