The Slaves of Solitude (18 page)

He stressed the ‘awfulness’ of the time he had been having, and she was bold enough to ask, ‘Awful in what way?’ ‘Oh, just awful,’ he said evasively, and she
quickly realised that he had not really been having an awful time, but was throwing out a mist of vague awfulness to conceal his real activities. This smoke-screen was also a form of apology and a
form of compliment – the implication being that what he had been doing apart from her had been entirely under compulsion (since he would obviously not have endured anything so awful of his
own free will), and that it was particularly awful because it had removed him from her company. He had probably been having the time of his life. However, the fact that he was taking the trouble
thus to placate her proved that he was anxious to some extent to return to the fold, and her feelings towards him were cordial.

‘Well, can you get away tonight?’ he said. ‘I was thinking we could get a car and go over to the Dragon.’ The Dragon was a well-known country-inn-cum-restaurant about
five miles outside Thames Lockdon, which still served steaks and to which the well-to-do resorted in cars.

‘Well, that sounds very nice,’ she said, and added, in a hesitating way, ‘Yes. I think I could . . . I think I could . . .’ And there was a pause.

Miss Roach was actually speaking in this hesitating way simply because she was generally reviewing the situation and specifically wondering what she was going to wear at the Dragon. But the
Lieutenant took it for something else.

‘Is the German girl still there with you?’ he said.

This was a seemingly irrelevant query, but she saw his mental processes clearly. The last time he had phoned her she had in the first place refused to come out for the reason that she had to
stay in with her friend. He was now, in the back of his consciousness, remembering this, and, hearing her hesitant again, had quite automatically and unthinkingly mentioned the German girl.

Or was she completely mistaking his mental processes? Was he ringing her up purely as a means to renew his friendship with the German girl?

‘Yes, she’s still here,’ she said. ‘She’s still here all right . . .’ And there was another pause.

For whatever reason, Miss Roach realised, the German girl had now appeared upon the scene, and something had to be done about her. She waited for him to speak.

‘Would you like to bring her along?’ he said, and she had no idea what his voice conveyed – indifference, reluctance, or eagerness in disguise.

‘Well – what do you think,’ she said. ‘It’s your party.’

‘No. It’s just as
you
like.’

‘No. It’s just as
you
like.’

‘No. It’s just as you
like
,’ said the Lieutenant.

‘Oh – all right then,’ she said. ‘Let’s all go out together.’

‘Fine,’ he said, and, afte arranging to meet at the River Sun at half-past six, they rang off.

5

As she returned to the dining-room she felt glad at what she had done. Only this morning she had made up her mind to like Vicki better in the future, and now she had set
the machinery going in the right way.

‘That was the Lieutenant,’ she said to Vicki as she sat down. ‘Would you like to go to the Dragon tonight?’

‘Me?’ said Vicki. ‘The Dragon?’

‘Yes. That’s right. Are you free?’

‘Yes. I’m free. I’d love to. It’s very nice of him to have asked me.’

Impossible to tell Vicki that he had
not
asked her, that she had not really been asked at all, or that, if anyone had asked her, she had!

‘Is that the place,’ asked Mr. Thwaites, ‘out at Hearnsden?’

‘Yes. That’s right,’ said Miss Roach.

‘Where you get black-market steaks and are charged five shillings for a small cocktail?’ continued Mr. Thwaites, looking at her.

‘Well – I don’t know about five shillings.’

‘And where the cars are lined up ten deep outside on black-market petrol?’

‘Well – I don’t know . . .’

‘While the country’s wanting every ounce of petrol it can get to prosecute the war?’ asked Mr. Thwaites.

‘Well . . .’

‘I only wanted to know,’ said Mr. Thwaites, with majestic neutrality, and continued his meal, the rest of which was eaten in cowed silence by all – by Miss Roach, Miss
Kugelmann, Mrs. Barratt, Miss Steele, and Mr. Prest in his corner.

CHAPTER TEN

1

I
T
was not so much what Vicki did that night: it was what 1 she said. It was not her behaviour: it was her
vocabulary!

Vicki, who had been remarkably sprightly and cheerful throughout tea, took a long while over her dressing, and Miss Roach went into her room to tell her that if they did not hurry up they would
be late.

‘Oh – keep him waiting,’ said Vicki, who was combing her hair. ‘I always believe in keeping them waiting.’

An extraordinary attitude, thought Miss Roach, for one who had been invited to this meeting in the precise way she had – that was to say, not invited at all! Extraordinary, too, the way
she seemed always to regard herself, rather than Miss Roach, as the one controlling and dominating the Lieutenant. But then she wasn’t really to know that she had only been invited by
accident, and she wasn’t to know, really, that Miss Roach had any particular claim on the Lieutenant by virtue of kisses in the dark and other matters.

They were ten minutes late at the River Sun, and the Lieutenant was waiting for them.

‘Good evening, Mr. Lieutenant!’ said Vicki. ‘And how are you?’

And the way she said this was controlling and dominating – the ‘Mr.’ seeming to challenge him, slightly ridicule him, and take him in charge.

From the first moment, too, she took on the part of the leading spirit of the party – an attitude of being the guest of the evening, of giving forth, at once as a duty and charming
condescension, her vitality and wit.

The very way she crossed her legs and lit her first cigarette, or rather allowed the Lieutenant to light it for her, expressed – in its extra neat self-satisfaction, in its extra primness
and authoritativeness, in the proficiency of its extra elaborations – this attitude. Miss Roach looked at the Lieutenant, to see if he was at all taken aback, but he showed no sign of this.
He seemed, on the contrary, to be charmed.

As soon as they had finished their second round of drinks Miss Roach had an idea that both Vicki and the Lieutenant were getting a little silly with drink, whereas she was remaining where she
was, and she felt, accordingly, a little bit out of it. She had felt something of the same thing when these two had met before.

The Lieutenant having asked them whether they would like to make a change from the gin and french they were drinking, Vicki said, ‘Why, yes. I’d really like a nice cocktail. Only you
silly English don’t know how to make a proper cocktail, do you?’

‘Well, I’m not English,’ said the Lieutenant, and ‘Oh no, so you’re not,’ said Vicki, and although it was obvious that no rudeness to herself was intended,
this made Miss Roach feel more out of it than ever.

This was the first time that Vicki had alluded to the English in this way, and Miss Roach was not at all certain that she liked it. Willing enough as she was herself, at certain times, to
disparage the English in a more or less conventional way – to deplore their manners, their cooking, their complacency, arrogance, and dullness – she yet found something peculiarly ugly
and suspect in this disparagement of the English on Vicki’s lips in the world of the present moment. If she didn’t like the English, who did she like? The Germans? And if the Germans,
what sort of Germans? The Nazi Germans? She was a funny one, this Vicki. She wanted watching. Or was she, Miss Roach, as usual letting her imagination run away with her? Almost certainly she was.
No doubt Vicki detested the Germans and was thinking of the French, the Belgians, or the Dutch as supreme makers of cocktails.

‘Why,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘can you make a cocktail?’

‘Can I make a cocktail?’ said Vicki. ‘Oh, boy, can I make a cocktail!’

‘From which I take it,’ said the Lieutenant, apparently delighted rather than nauseated by this excursion into his own idiom, ‘that you can make a cocktail!’

‘Can I make a cocktail?’ said Vicki, conscious of having made a success, and so enlarging upon it, ‘or can I make a cocktail? Uh
-huh
! Oh, boy! Wizard!’

(‘
Uh-huh!
’ ‘
Oh, boy!
’ ‘
Wizard!
’) The mere mention of ‘cocktails’, in 1943, was frightful enough, but with the addition of
‘Uh-huh’, ‘Oh, boy’, and ‘Wizard’ a depth was reached of which Miss Roach had not even thought Vicki capable.

‘Well, let’s have a cocktail now,’ she said, to hide her shame at this new depth.

2

It was Vicki Kugelmann’s evening all right – there was no doubt about that. With every drink they took this became more evident.

By half-past seven Miss Roach was already feeling hungry and wondering when they were going to stop drinking and go to the Dragon. She even had the courage to mention this, but she did not get
any answer, for at the moment of asking the Lieutenant and Vicki were playing upon the electric ball-machine in the corner of the lounge, and one of Vicki’s cries of triumph completely
drowned her timid plea.

Never was such an enchanting liveliness and responsiveness brought to any game as Vicki brought to this. To observe her childish glee and animation as she set the ball going, the way she lifted
her hands in agonised suspense as it began its downward journey, the way she cried out with pleasure or disappointment at each electric jab, the way, in the intensity of her excitement, and as if
to urge the ball to go in the direction she required, she leaned right over the glass (thus letting her hair fall over her forehead with exactly the same charming waywardness it had shown when she
had been playing patience with Mr. Thwaites), the way she tossed it back, the way she clapped her hands at unexpected successes, the way she imitated a little girl crying at unexpected failures
– to observe all these things was to observe something very remarkable indeed.

Equally remarkable was her generous and vociferous reaction to her rival’s game. ‘Oh – sporty!
Sporty!
’ she would cry, having apparently got it into her head that
this was the word above all words with which the English express their admiration of skill or luck at games. Or ‘Oh – sporty shot, sir! Sporty play!’ Or ‘Oh, wizard shot!
Wizard!’ Or, to the Lieutenant, ‘Oh – good for you, big boy, good for you!’ Or ‘Oh – hard lines, old fellow! Hard lines!’ Or ‘Oh – hard cheese
– hard cheese!’ Miss Roach felt she could sink beneath the earth.

‘Now I buy you a drink,’ said Vicki at last, and, on the Lieutenant protesting, ‘No – I stand you a round. I stand you all a round!’ And she went away to the bar to
get it.

Miss Roach felt certain that the Lieutenant must be experiencing something of the same feeling as herself, and thought that now was the moment to say something about it. But she did not quite
know how to put it. ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ was what she wanted to say, but something stopped her. Instead she said, ‘I’m afraid Vicki’s getting a bit tight.
You mustn’t let her have too much.’

The Lieutenant, who was playing the machine, paused a moment before replying.

‘Tight?’ he said. ‘She’s not tight. I’m  glad you brought her along. She kind of lightens things up.’

Vicki’s return with the drinks prevented Miss Roach from indulging in any too intense introspection concerning this attitude on the part of the Lieutenant. They all lifted their
glasses.

‘
Skol! Prosit! Santé!’
said Vicki, and, having thus established her familiarity with continental toasts, she took a sip, and revealed again her esoteric knowledge of
informal English. ‘Cheers, old chap!’ she said. ‘Here’s how! Mud in your eye! Down the jolly old hatch!’

And then, having taken another gulp, she expressed her appreciation.

‘Spiffing stuff!’ she said. ‘Abso-blooming-lutely. No? What?’

3

Vicki having bought a round, Miss Roach had to buy one too.

Returning from the bar with the drinks in her hands, she found an ill-looking man in a long, shabby overcoat talking to the Lieutenant. This was the driver of the car which was to take them over
to the Dragon.

‘All right. We’re coming,’ said the Lieutenant, who was now drunk. ‘Just be patient. We’re coming.’ And the ill-looking man went away.

Soon after this the drink went to Miss Roach’s own head, and everything became very hazy. They went on playing at the machine, but none of them were quite aware of what they were doing and
no longer took any account of the scores they were making, and before long they were joined by Lieutenant Lummis. With him were two strange women, and three strange American officers, and the whole
atmosphere was changed into one of a general
mêlée.

At one moment she was sitting between two American officers, who were expatiating upon the depth and warmth of English hospitality, and then something happened and she was sitting next to one of
the two women, with whom she was exchanging notes and anecdotes about the blitz in London. The Lieutenant had disappeared to the other end of the lounge, and Vicki was talking eagerly to one of the
American officers. While all this was happening more than one drink, at which she barely sipped, was put in front of her, and the ill-looking man in the overcoat, who was driving the car, came in
more than once, miserably, and went away again.

It was half-past eight before they made a move from the River Sun, and how it came about she never remembered – possibly the ill-looking man had at last taken to threats, though he looked
too ill to threaten anybody. All she knew was that she was out in the moonlit air, and that two of the American officers were going to share the car to the Dragon. By this time Vicki Kugelmann was
mistering everybody and ordering them about. It was ‘Mr. Major’ to one officer, and ‘Mr. Captain’ to another, and ‘Mr. Lieutenant’ to the Lieutenant. She ended
up with ‘Mr. Car-driver’. ‘Come on, Car-driver,’ she said. ‘I’ll sit in front with you.’