The Levant Trilogy (65 page)

Edwina had announced her engagement to Tony
Brody but she still had doubts about the marriage. Creeping her hand towards
Guy and gently touching his arm, she sighed and said: 'Guy darling, what do you
think?
Should
I marry Tony?'

'Don't you want to marry him?'

'I wish I knew. I'm fond of him, of course, but
he's so stingy about money. I told him I wanted a big wedding in the cathedral
and an arch of swords but he won't hear of it. He says a simple ceremony at the
Consulate will do for him. Isn't that mean? I've always wanted an arch of
swords but he refuses to speak to his colonel. Just think of it! A simple
ceremony at the Consulate! We might as well not be married at all. What was
your wedding like, Guy?'

'Very simple. We went to a registry office.'

'Oh yes, people did that in England with the war
coming. But next time you'd want something better than that.'

'There won't be a next time.'

'Oh Guy, really!' The evening in the fish
restaurant had faded into the past and Edwina again considered Guy as a likely
match: 'You're too young to be on your own. I keep thinking how silly it would
be if I married Tony and then you changed your mind and started looking.
..
well, you know what I mean!'

Guy smiled: 'I won't change my mind. I'm not the
marrying kind.'

'You married Harriet.'

'Harriet was different.'

'How horrid you are!' Edwina, growing pink,
shook her hair down to hide her face and said in a small voice: 'Well,
Harriet's gone, now. Poor Harriet! You weren't all that nice to her when she
was alive. She must have spent a good many nights alone here just as I do when
Tony's on duty. I know how beastly it is.'

Guy rose without speaking and went to his room
to sort his books. Dobson said to Edwina: 'That was cruel and uncalled for,
Edwina.'

'I don't think it was uncalled for. Why is Guy
so rude and horrid these days? He used to be sweet but now you never know what
he'll say.'

'Then don't provoke him. If you've settled for
Tony Brody, you must put Guy out of your mind.'

'You don't care what happens to me, do you? It's
miserable being engaged. Nobody takes me out now except Tony.'

'You mean there's loyalty among men even in
these lean times?'

'No, it's not that. All the best men have gone
to Tunisia.'

'If you're marrying Tony simply because there's
no one else, you'd be wise to wait. There are always better fish in the sea.'

'Oh, but we can't wait because we're going to
Assuan. I've always wanted to stay at the Cataract and it'll soon be too hot.'

Marrying in haste, Edwina went around in taxis,
shopping for her trousseau, buying evening dresses at Cicurel and having
fittings for her bridal gown. She occasionally looked in at her office because
she had decided to keep her job. It was, in its way, war work and, in a less enthusiastic
mood, she admitted Tony had said the money would be useful. As she was still
arguing and pleading for a cathedral wedding and a reception at the Semiramis,
Tony had to tell her that he was a divorced man. Though there might be no ban
by the cathedral authorities, he felt that a quiet civil ceremony would be more
fitting for a second marriage. Edwina, stunned by this disclosure, was left
with nothing but the honeymoon at the Cataract; and Upper Egypt was already
uncomfortably hot.

'Poor girl,' Dobson said to Guy: 'I'll have to
do something for her. We could have a little reception here. It won't be very
grand but it will be better than nothing.'

Offered a party of thirty guests with Cyprus
champagne and a cake from Groppi's, Edwina was moved to tears: 'Oh, Dobbie,
what a darling you are! What a darling you've always been to me! Guy, too.' She
dabbed at her eyes and both men felt the pathos of lost hopes. All her lavish
plans had gone down in disappointment. She had hoped to marry Peter
Lisdoonvarna and have a title, even if only an Irish one, and she had ended
with a major past his first youth who already had one wife to keep.

Meanwhile Dobson had decided to write his
memoirs. 'With the war out of the way, one has to do something,' he said and at
the breakfast table, while Edwina was trying to discuss the details of her
reception, he would call on Guy to approve some theory about empire or advise
on some anecdote or other. He kept a collection of used envelopes on which he
made notes.

Guy, giving an ear to each of them, inclined
towards Dobson, having some interest in the uses of diplomacy and none in Tony
Brody.

It was Dobson's belief that the British empire
began to decay when the speed-up of communications gave the Colonial Office
dominion over the colonial governors.

'That will be my theme,' he said.

Guy considered it: 'You mean, individuality
became answerable to the machine?'

'Excellently put,' Dobson scribbled on an
envelope: 'We no longer have great men like Bentinck, the Wellesleys, Henry Laurence,
James Kirk: men who developed their initiative by exercising it. Now the
service is dependent on a pack of nonentities. You agree?'

'I'm not sure that I do. One can develop bad
judgement as well as good.'

'True, but now we have no judgement at all. We
administer by statistics.'

'That's not necessarily harmful. Think of the
mayhem that's been caused by putting a Hitler in control.'

'Well, yes. Strong measures don't always work.
Would you say that
HE
did any good
when he drove a tank through the gates of Abdin Palace?'

'You know more about that than I do.'

Dobson consulted another envelope: 'I've said
the results weren't up to much.
HE
thought he'd taught Farouk a lesson but Farouk has his own ideas. He's no fool.
The other day he said to HE: "When are you going to take the last of your
damn troops out of my country." HE gave him a lecture on Egypt being the
front line of defence of the Gulf oil-fields. Farouk listened in sulky silence
and at the end said: "Oh, stay if you must, but when the war's over, for
God's sake put down the white man's burden and go."'

When Guy laughed, Dobson added quickly: 'But
keep that under your hat. It's my story. Those bloody journalists are a pack of
thieves. If you're fool enough to tell them anything, they'll print it as their
own next day. Your friend Jackman is the biggest crook.'

'Jackman's no longer here.'

'Umm, I forgot. Now listen to this: King Farouk
said to me: "Egypt, you know, is part of Europe." "Indeed,"
I replied: "Which part?" I wasn't going to put it in but I think it's
too good to leave out.'

Edwina, weary of this talk, broke in on it: 'Oh,
Dobbie, you're becoming a bore. No wonder Harriet described you as a master of
impersonal conversation.'

'Did she?' Dobson spoke in a high note of
satisfaction and scribbled down: 'Master of impersonal conversation.'

'I don't think you've any real feeling for
anyone. You know how worried I am. Here am I on the very eve of marrying Tony
and I'm not sure I'll go ahead with it.'

'Then I'd better cancel the order for
champagne.'

'Oh, I don't think you should do that,' Edwina
said.

When Edwina had accused him of leaving Harriet
too much on her own, Guy had been offended, yet the accusation was justified.
Harriet must have spent many nights on her own and he had never asked her what
she did with herself. Loneliness was something outside his experience. He had
his work and his friends, and he had sacrificed Harriet to both. The truth was,
the war had given his work too much importance. Work had condoned his civilian
sums. Its demands had left him no time for his wife and he had instigated her
return on the doomed ship. But had the demands of his work been so intensive?
Didn't he inflate them to save his civilian face?

Now, no longer challenged by the nearness of
war, he could see the futility of his reserved occupation. Lecturing on English
literature, teaching the English language, he had been peddling the idea of
empire to a country that only wanted one thing; to be rid of the British for
good and all. And, to add to the absurdity of the situation, he himself had no
belief in empire.

But if he did not have his work, what would be
left to him? He thought it no wonder that people were giving themselves to such
absurdities as Dobson's memoirs and Edwina's perfunctory marriage. The war had
abandoned them, leaving them in a vacuum that had been filled by everyday
worries. But everyday worries were not enough. They had to invent excitements
to make life bearable. Now it seemed to him the only excitement left in life
was work.

He still had friends, of course. Almost everyone
who knew him, claimed him as a friend. Simon was still on hand, glad of an
outing now and then. And Aidan Pratt, though given little encouragement, came
to Cairo with the sole purpose of seeing him.

Aidan, taking two weeks' leave, had spent the
whole time at Shepherd's, telephoning Guy every day and begging his company
when Guy had time to spare.

On his last day, he invited Guy to dinner at the
Hermitage. 'Just to say "goodbye",' he said with unconvincing
cheerfulness and Guy, feeling bound to him by his affection for Harriet,
accepted the invitation but said he would probably arrive late.

'However late you are, I'll wait for you,' Aidan
replied and Guy, tired of his company, felt the relationship was being augmented
by a sort of blackmail.

Crossing the Midan to the restaurant door, Guy
could see through the glass into the brightly-lit interior where Aidan was
sitting on a sofa. He was, as he promised, waiting for his guest, looking for
him but looking in the wrong direction, his dark, sombre eyes betraying a
longing that brought Guy to a stop.

Guy, reaching the pavement, paused in the
darkness of the street, reluctant to enter, knowing he was the longed-for
object. He had tolerated Aidan, feeling indebted to him for grief shared, but
now he had had enough. As he stood, half inclined to make his escape, Aidan
turned, saw him and at once played another role. He had been sitting in the
sofa corner like a caged, unhappy bird. Now, rising with an actor's grace, he
lifted a hand as Guy joined him and said: 'So there you are!'

'Sorry I'm late.'

'I'm quite used to your being late,' Aidan spoke
lightly, with a self-denigratory smile as though resigned to his unimportance
in Guy's scheme of things. The smile still lingered on his face as they went to
the table he had booked and sat down.

During dinner, he did not try to establish any
sort of intimacy. He talked, as most people did, about the war. He had heard,
he said, that plans were in hand for a combined British and American attack
across the Mediterranean.

Guy said: 'I knew it was on the cards but if
it's imminent, surely it would be top secret?'

'It is top secret. Naturally. But things get
round. That fellow Lister who works at Sharq al Adna, you've only to give him a
few drinks and he'll tell you anything. He got a signal about the preparations
for an attack across the Med, but there's more to it than that. There's a
rumour that the Vichy government has started to evacuate children from the
Channel ports. That could mean a concerted attack, north and south. If there
were two sudden blows, the whole centre could disintegrate quite suddenly. It might
mean a complete German collapse.'

'You think so?' Guy could not believe it. He did
not even want to believe it. He was in no fit state to face peace at that time:
'If by the centre, you mean the occupied countries, an area of that size
doesn't collapse in a hurry. Except for Switzerland and Sweden, it's the whole
of Europe.'

'What about Spain?'

'Spain's pan of the Axis.'

'I wouldn't say that. The Germans haven't found
Franco as docile as they'd hoped, and we should be grateful for it. If the
government had won, Spain would have been occupied when war broke out.
It
would have been an important stronghold
for the enemy. We would certainly have lost Gibraltar.'

Guy, frowning, said: 'That's merely
supposition.'

Aware that he had annoyed Guy, Aidan left the question
of Spain and said mildly: 'I have a feeling the war could be over this year.'

'That's ridiculous. The Germans will fight from
town to town, from house to house, doorway to doorway. It could drag on for
years. By the time we get back - if we ever do get back - there may be nothing
left of Europe but rat-ridden, plague-stricken ruins, and, don't forget, there
are other war zones. I can't imagine the Japanese ever giving in. It could be
like the Hundred Years War. There may never be peace in our time.'

Aidan gave a bleak laugh: 'You're very gloomy
tonight. Why shouldn't we pull out? - make a separate peace?'

'Pull out? We're allied to Russia and the United
States. Do you imagine we could pull out and leave them to fight without us?
Would you want such a thing?'

'I don't know. Perhaps.'