The Mule on the Minaret (71 page)

‘He was not scruffy.'

‘Please do not interrupt. A scruffy little Frenchman whose intentions you said were honourable because he wanted a husband's right to your inheritance.'

‘That is not at all the way it was.'

‘That is how this poor Captain thought it was. He was in a prison from which he could not escape. He longed for the war to end. But when it did end, when he realized that he was soon to go back to England, that he would never see you again, it was more than he could face. Where else should he find anyone so beautiful, so adorable, with such eyes, with a voice that takes on so many tones, with so smooth a way of walking, and with such wit? When he realized what he should have to lose, he knew that there was only one thing in the world he wanted: to stay on here for ever as your husband. And his hand would press firmly over yours. There would be a glow in his eyes; and your eyes too would widen and grow tender. You would lean towards him and his arm would go round your shoulders, drawing you close, close, closer to him. And that is the greatest moment in a woman's life, but that is a moment that you can never know because a respectable young lady of the Lebanon does not go out unchaperoned for a drive with a young man.'

‘And if permission had been given for a young lady of the Lebanon to make such a hazardous excursion, is that what he would have said to her, my persuasive Captain?'

‘That is what he would have said to her; but because it is not permissible, he has had to make her this little speech here in a crowded smoke-filled room.'

‘And is that what you have in fact said to me? That you want to stay on here in Lebanon for ever and be my husband?'

‘That is what I have said.'

‘Ah, but my silly and long-longed-for Captain, do you not think that I am much happier to have it said here and before so irreproachable a witness as our dear Professor?'

Her eyes were twinkling but they were very fond. She raised her hand. She rested it on his arm, above his elbow, pressing it.
‘Ah, but how grateful you are going to be in two years' time that all this has happened in my way, not yours.'

Reid had a three days' wait in Alexandria, in a transit camp, before he was due to sail. He had sent Gustave a signal from Beirut, and when he reached the depot, there was a message saying that Colonel Sargent would call for him on the following evening at seven o'clock. It took him a minute to realize who Colonel Sargent was. With his First War regard for rank, he found it hard to think of Gustave as a Colonel.

Gustave arrived in a staff car, punctually, in full regimentals.

‘This is on me,' he said. ‘You did me very well at the Turf Club when I needed doing well. Let's call it quits. Home James and don't spare the horses.'

Gustave had acquired a new vernacular since Reid had seen him last. It seemed to be a Victorian style of humour, put between inverted commas. Gustave took him to the kind of unostentatious restaurant that a man of the world recognized at a glance to be certainly very expensive and probably very good. The equivalent of the Maison Basque in London in the ‘20s.

Gustave waved away the
table d'hôte
menu that he was offered. ‘No,
à la carte,'
he said. ‘I know what's good here, Prof. If you will allow me to make suggestions. They don't mind our sharing a single dish between us, so why not divide a
sole lucullus?
What would you like first, a
consomm
é? A fruit cocktail?'

That's how it started. That was how it went on.

‘Do you realize, Prof., it's nearly four years since we caught that Leopoldville at Glasgow? I was a Lieutenant and you a Captain. Not done so badly for ourselves since, have we? Level pegging up the ladder. Three rungs apiece. What'll we take with this, a carafe of “the widow” . . .?'

Gustave had certainly created a
persona.

Reid let him talk, then later in the evening started asking questions.

‘What are your immediate plans? When are you coming back to England?'

Gustave winked, knowingly. ‘Not for a long time if I can help it. I've learnt a lot since I've been in this racket. I know my way around, and I haven't wasted my nights as Duty Officer. I've nosed around the files. I don't only know what is what, but who is who. There'll be a lot of funny business going on out here after
the war. And I, with my Alexandrian mother, sit both sides of the fence. Fishing in troubled waters; that's Gustave's line. And the first come are the first served.'

Reid relaxed to this expansive entertainment.

Gustave did not seem to have a trouble in the world, but Reid had not forgotten his promise to Farrar.

‘I suppose that that star is the reward for your mission to Ankara,' he said.

‘I suppose it is.'

‘You wouldn't like to tell me about it, would you?'

A crafty look came into Gustave's eyes.

‘You wouldn't want me to break the Official Secrets Act, now would you?'

Reid laughed.

‘I don't see why I shouldn't know if Farrar does.'

‘Can you be sure that Farrar knows everything?'

‘If he doesn't, who does?'

‘Perhaps there's a man in Ankara who knows more than Farrar does. Haven't you yourself told me that in intelligence you only tell a man as much as he needs to know, to carry out the immediate job in hand?'

Gustave's eyes were twinkling. He was in the stronger position. He was enjoying it. ‘Two can play this game,' thought Reid. He said:

‘You think that Ankara and Cairo know something that Farrar doesn't.'

‘It might be.'

‘Farrar is very pleased with the way it all turned out.'

‘I am glad to hear that.'

‘And Cairo must be as well, otherwise you wouldn't have that star.'

‘It looks rather like that, doesn't it?'

‘Let's hope that Ankara is too.'

Gustave's expression changed.

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘What do I mean by what?'

‘Saying that you hoped Ankara was pleased.'

‘Don't you?'

‘Of course, naturally, but still . . .' He checked, there was a belligerent but at the same time a furtive expression on his face, as though he was afraid of something. ‘Have you heard anything to make you suspect that Ankara's not pleased?'

‘How could I have? I don't know what went on.'

‘I know you don't, but at the same time, you might have heard . . . suppose my name had come up in conversation and some one from the Turkish section had . . . well you know how it is . . . the way a man looks knowingly and shrugs and says, “Oh, Gustave.” You know that old Latin tag “Even though they are silent, they say enough.”'

‘Whatever makes you think they have?'

‘Nothing.... Only it was a funny thing for you to say, “Let's hope that Ankara is too.” If you had heard anything, I'd be most grateful if you'd tell me.'

‘I can assure you that I haven't.'

‘Because if you had . . .' he paused. ‘It would make a lot of difference if you had.'

Gustave checked again. Reid waited, inquisitive, alert. Gustave wanted to ask him, Gustave wanted to tell him something. Gustave was anxious, apprehensive. ‘It's coming,' Reid thought, ‘It's coming.'

It didn't though. Gustave blinked and shook himself.

‘Forget it,' he said, ‘Forget it. All the same, it
was
a damned funny thing to say.'

‘Something damned funny must have happened in Ankara,' Reid thought.

A month later, on a grey dank afternoon, the convoy in which Reid had travelled home, anchored in the bay of Greenock. The process of disembarkation was swift and smooth. A customs officer came on board. ‘It seems unfair to take money off you chaps after all you've been through,' he explained. ‘But H.M.'s excises feel that every ship that docks has to pay its way. As long as each ship covers our expenses, we don't care. I don't want to look at anything. Just tell me what you've brought and I'll believe you. It's reasonable to assume isn't it, that each of you will have brought back something dutiable?'

Reid had four Persian carpets. He valued them at a pound apiece, and paid a duty of fifteen shillings on them. The officer was quite satisfied. Within seventy minutes, they were all off the ship in a train. Reid bought a copy of
The Star.
It was the first evening paper he had seen for over forty months. He was surprised both at how small it was, and how much news was compressed within its shortened columns. ‘Such concentrated writing must be very difficult,' he thought.

Most of the paper was concerned with the Election. Polling day was the week after next. During the last month Paiforce had been placarded with posters exhorting the troops to ‘serve like a soldier' and ‘vote like a citizen.' He had registered his vote for the Conservatives, not out of any particular conviction but because he wanted to see Churchill still in the saddle when the war was finished.
The Star
was politically liberal. The liberal vote had ceased to be important. The Star's reporting was detached and
neutral. An editorial note reported that the betting was two to one on a Conservative majority of fifty seats.

Young women in A.T.S. uniforms came down the platform with cups of steaming tea. Reid had been warned against the flabbiness of wartime beer, but the tea was as good as ever, strong and hot and sweet. The girls also brought paper bags, containing, each one, a cheese sandwich, a hard-boiled egg and a bar of chocolate. Cheese and chocolate and eggs were in short supply. A special effort must have been made to provide this ‘welcome home.' It was touching, and rather pathetic too, Reid thought.

They were bound for Carlisle, where they would spend the night in barracks. Next day there would be the handing over of equipment, the final filling in of forms. In the later afternoon, they would catch a train for London. Early on the following morning they would return to civilian life with the bonus of three months' leave on full pay and allowances. Across the carriage, a major in the Greys was saying: ‘I can't wait to get my hands on a telephone. I've been away five years. To hear my wife's voice again after sixty months.' It was only then that Reid realized that he did not know Rachel's telephone number. She had changed flats a few weeks ago. It was a furnished flat. He did not know the name of the owner-tenant. He supposed that he could find the number through directory inquiries. But it would take time. Telephone girls were tired and short tempered. It would be easier to send a telegram. Moreover, did he really want their first meeting to be across a wire. It was not going to be an easy meeting. Four years was a long time, and four such years; with a break in them such as they had had.

On what terms would they be meeting now? Would they behave as though there had been no interval; as though that divorce application had not been filed? Would what the law courts described as ‘marital relations' be resumed? Did she want them to be, did he want them to be? Would she seem, would she be a different person? Would he seem different to her? After all there had been Diana. In a sense there still was Diana.

The fortnightly letters that he and Rachel had exchanged over the last year had been cordial enough: they had still a great deal in common. Marriage was a partnership, even if love deserted it.

During the long journey across the Mediterranean, round Gibraltar, he had grown increasingly apprehensive. There was nothing he could do. He would have to await the inspiration of the
moment. Balzac in his physiology of marriage had devoted an entire section to the single, trenchant statement. ‘Everything depends on the first night.' That was, he was very sure, how it was to be, between himself and Rachel. Everything would depend upon the first few hours. And chance would decide upon their course. Yes, he was glad on the whole he did not know her number.

Her flat was in Bloomsbury Square, on the second floor of a converted Georgian house. The final formalities of his discharge had been carried out with such speed that he arrived there shortly after nine o'clock. She opened the door for him. She was wearing a hat, and a dark coat and skirt. ‘So early. I was just going out,' she said. She had an envelope in her hand. ‘I'd just written you a note to explain that the key's under the door.'

The hall was dark and he could not see the expression on her face.

‘Where are you going?' he asked.

‘To my office, of course. I'm due at half past nine. I'm almost late.'

He knew that she worked in Gower Street, in the Ministry of Information. But he had not anticipated that she would be going there on his first day home.

‘Is that all your luggage?' she inquired.

He had only a suitcase and a satchel. ‘My valise is coming independently.'

‘You look very smart with your red flashes.'

‘I'll be glad to get into tweeds.'

‘You won't find them in too good condition. The moths have got at them.'

‘At all of them?'

‘Most of them. I went down to the Farm to collect them. It was quite a shock. They had been in moth balls too.'

‘That's a good excuse for getting new ones.'

‘If you've any coupons. How many did they give you by the way?'

‘I've no idea. There were so many forms, including a post office savings account book with my gratuity.'

‘I hope you've got a ration book.'

‘Yes. I've got that.'

‘Good, the sooner you get it round to the food office the better.
I'll jot the address down for you. Then I must be running. I'm late already.'

‘When will you be back?'

‘Round about half past six.'

‘Why don't we meet in London and have dinner there?'

She shook her head. ‘Everywhere's so crowded. Everything's so bad. I've managed to scrounge a chicken: and I brought some of the wine from the Farm. We'll fare better here. Now I must rush. I think you'll find everything. See you tonight.'