War and Remembrance (17 page)

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ve still got a report to write tonight.”

“It is awkward, isn’t it — I mean, Madeline being here and all?”

With a grimace and a shrug of one shoulder Palmer Kirby said, “It really doesn’t matter.”

So chilly were those words, all of Rhoda’s recently gained security was blasted away. “Palmer,” she said in a charged voice, “take me to your apartment.”

This startled life into his drooping eyes. “What? Is that what you want?”

“What do you think, you fool?” They looked at each other. Rhoda’s expression smouldered and a little half-smile curved her thin pretty lips. “Don’t you?”

She returned to the house around one. The living room was dark, and Madeline was not in her bedroom. Having already bathed in Kirby’s apartment, Rhoda changed into a housecoat and went downstairs. She felt a bit silly about all this rapid-fire dressing and undressing. Otherwise she felt very good indeed — an afterglow in her body, a new peace in her mind. Kirby had proposed, as expected, after the lovemaking. She had firmly put him off. She could not consider, she had told him, a proposal made under pressure. Brilliant response! He had wonderfully cheered up, his dutiful manner vanishing in a great grin and a strong hug.

“Well, meantime, Rhoda, will we — well, go on seeing each other?”

“Dear, if ‘seeing is what you choose to call this, why yes, by all means. I loved being seen by you tonight. Very penetrating vision.” Rhoda enjoyed such wheezy ribaldry with Kirby; a taste that somehow, with Victor Henry, she seldom indulged. Her remark brought Kirby’s sudden vulgar smile, showing teeth and gums. Then when she left, some time later, his unreflecting remark, “When will I see you again?” made them both whoop with laughter.

She threw logs on the red embers, mixed herself a drink, and reread Pug’s letter. With Kirby’s proposal in hand, it affected her differently. She was a grandmother twice over, and here she was loved and wanted by two fine men! Not since her adolescent days, when the phone had jangled with dance invitations, and she had turned down two boys in the gamble that a preferred third one would call, had she felt quite this pleasure in her own power to attract.

With such thoughts running through her mind, she jumped when the telephone rang. It was the long-distance operator, calling from Palm Springs for Madeline Henry.

“She’s not here. I’m her mother.”

Rhoda heard Cleveland’s unmistakable voice: “Operator! Operator! I’ll talk to this party… Hello, Mrs. Henry? Sorry to disturb you.” The celebrated rich rumble charmed and soothed the ear. “Is Maddy really in Washington?”

“Yes, but she’s out for the evening.”

“Look, how serious is she about becoming a nurse’s aide? I mean, I’m all for patriotism, Mrs. Henry, but that’s a ridiculous notion. Any nigger girl can become a nurse’s aide.”

“Frankly, Mr. Cleveland, I admire her. There’s a war on.”

“I realize that.” Cleveland heavily sighed. “But the morale effect of
The Happy Hour
is a great war service, I assure you. You should see the letters from admirals and generals framed in my office!” The voice grew warmer and more intimate. “Rhoda — if I may call you that — with two sons and a hubby in the armed forces, aren’t you making enough of a sacrifice? Suppose they send her overseas? You’d be alone all through the war.”

“Madeline didn’t like your going off on a vacation at this time, Mr. Cleveland. She feels you’re indifferent to the war. And she said something about sables.”

“Oh, Jesus! What did she say about the sables?”

“Sables for your wife, I believe.”

With a low groan, Cleveland said, “Christ, if it isn’t one thing it’s another. She manages the show backstage, Rhoda. I can step out for a week, but she can’t. We have to train a replacement for her. Please tell her to call me when she gets in.”

“I’ll probably be asleep. I can leave her a message.”

“Thanks. Write it in lipstick on her mirror.” That made Rhoda laugh. “I’m not kidding. I must talk to her tonight.”

Rhoda was finishing her drink by the fire when she heard Madeline in the hallway saying good-bye to Sime Anderson. The daughter marched in perkily. “Hi, Mom. Nightcap? Think I’ll join you.”

“Dear, Hugh Cleveland called.”

The daughter halted, frowning. “When?”

“Not long ago. His number in Palm Springs is on the telephone table.”

Tossing her nose in the air like a little girl, Madeline sat down by the waning fire, and picked up the snapshot beside her father’s letter. “Wow, Briny’s baby, hey? Poor Natalie! She looks fat as a cow here. Mom, can’t you find out what’s happened to them?”

“Her mother wrote to the State Department. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“That’s a weird marriage anyway. Most marriages seem to be. Take Claire Cleveland. She hasn’t grown with Hugh, and that makes her insanely jealous. Did Dad write anything about that stupid letter I sent him?”

“Only in passing.”

“What did he say?”

Rhoda looked through the three sheets. “Here we are. It’s short. ‘I don’t know what went wrong with Madeline. I’m kind of sick about that, and don’t propose to dwell on it. If the fellow wants to marry her, that may clean the mess up as much as anything can. If not, he’ll be hearing from me.’”

“Oh, dear. Poor, poor Dad!” Madeline struck a little fist on the sofa. “She’d no more have divorced Hugh! I should never have written. I just panicked, because I was so astounded at her accusations.”

“Write him again, dear. Tell him that it was all nonsense.”

“I intend to.” With a huge yawn, Madeline stood up. “Sime is sort of sweet, you know? So crushed, so obliging! If I asked him to cut off his own head, he’d fetch an axe and do it. Boring, actually.”

“Do go and call Mr. Cleveland, Madeline.”

The daughter went out. Later Hugh Cleveland called again. The phone rang and rang until Rhoda answered. She went to her daughter’s room and shouted at her through the bath door, over the sound of gushing water, to take the call.

“What the Christ does he want?” Madeline yelled. “I can’t be bothered. Tell him I’m covered with soap.”

Cleveland said he would wait until Madeline dried herself.

“Oh, Jesus! Tell him I like to soak myself for half an hour before I go to bed. This is outrageous, pestering me at half past two in the morning!”

“Madeline, I’ll
NOT
go on with this idiotic bellowing through a door. Dry yourself and come out.”

I WONT. And if he doesn’t like it, tell him I quit, and to kindly go and hang himself.”

“Hello? Mr. Cleveland? Better wait until morning. She’s truly in a very bad mood.”

“He’ll call
you
in the morning,” she carolled, her teasing singsong conveying Madeline’s victory.

“I couldn’t care less,” Madeline sang back.

Rhoda tossed in the darkness for almost an hour, then got up, fetched a writing pad and pen, and sat up in bed.

Dearest Pug —

I could write forty pages, expressing how I feel about you, and our life together, and the wonderful letter you’ve written me, but I’ll keep this short. Of one thing I’m sure. You’re mighty busy now!

First of all, Madeline. It’s a long story, but the nub of it is she was frightened by an utterly false accusation and an utterly scurrilous threat. I’m sure she’s innocent of any wrong-doing. She’s come to stay with me for Christmas, so I don’t feel totally alone, and I must say she’s turned into quite the spiffy New York gal. Believe it or not, Sime Anderson still dances attendance! He took her out tonight. She’s in excellent control of her situation, and you can put that problem out of your mind.

If you can do it, please put me out of your mind, too, for the next few months, except as the little old lady back home. You have a war to fight. What I said in my last letter still goes, but there’s this
horrible
time lag in our correspondence, and we just can’t thrash anything out this way. I’ve been around a long time, and I’m not going to do anything drastic. When you get back, I’ll be right here in Foxhall Road, waiting like a good Navy wife in my best bib and tucker, with a full martini jug.

I cried when I read your offer to forget my letter and go on as before. That’s like you. It’s almost too generous to accept, and we both ought to take time to think about it. It may well be that I’m “not a schoolgirl,” and that I’ve actually been going through a sort of middle-aged “hot flash.” I’m doing my best to “sort myself out,” right down to the bottom. That you would be willing to forgive me is almost inconceivable — to anyone who doesn’t know you as I do. Believe me, I have never respected and loved you more or been more proud than when I read your letter.

There’s no news yet about Natalie and her baby, is there? None here. Please send any news of Byron. Love to Warren, Janice, and little Vic —

And of course, and forever to you —

Rho

Having written this, and meant every word of it, Rhoda turned out the light and slept the sleep of the just.

P
OUNDING
at the door.

The floor of the old Raffles Hotel bedroom shook as Pamela went running out, fumbling a negligee around her. “Who is it?”

“Phil Rule.”

She opened the door and got a shock.

She had last seen him on the morning after the Japanese attack, all nervy and dashing in jungle war rig, about to fly a rented private plane to the front. Rule was a sport flyer, and in pursuing a combat story he could be foolhardy. He had first fascinated Pamela during the Spanish Civil War with tales of his wild plane flights; his romantic yarns salted with Marxist rhetoric had put her in mind of Malraux. Now he was sodden wet, his hair hung in strings, his unshaven face was gaunt and hollow-eyed, and his bandaged hand was horribly swollen. Beside him, just as drenched, a short hard-faced army officer with iron-gray hair slapped a dripping swagger stick on a palm.

“My God, Phil! Come in.”

“This
is
Major Denton Shairpe.”

Tudsbury limped out of his bedroom in droopy yellow silk pajamas. “Bless me, Philip, you’re drowned,” he yawned.

“There’s a cloudburst outside. Can you give us some brandy? Penang has fallen. We’ve just come from there.”

“Good Christ,
Penang?
No.”

“Gone, I tell you. Gone.”

“Are they
that
far south? Why, that island’s a fortress!”

“It was. All Malaya’s falling. It’s an utter rout, and your broadcasts are criminal lies. Why in Christ’s name are you sucking up to the mendacious incompetent bastards who’ve botched this show and probably lost the Empire — not that it was worth saving?”

“I’ve told the truth, Phil.” Tudsbury’s face flushed as he handed the two men glasses of brandy. “Such as I could find out.”

“Bollocks. It’s been a lot of
Rule Britannia
gooseberry jam. Malaya’s gone, gone!”

“I say, jolly good brandy!” The major’s voice was astonishingly high and sweet, almost like a girl’s. “Don’t mind Phil, he’s got the wind up. He’s never been through a retreat like this. Malaya isn’t gone. We can still defeat these little bastards.”

“Denton was on General Dobbie’s staff,” Rule said hoarsely to Tudsbury. “I don’t agree with him, but listen to him! He’ll give you something to broadcast.”

Pamela went into her room for a bathrobe because Philip Rule kept staring at the thin silk over her breasts and thighs.

“Do you have a map of Malaya about?” Shairpe piped, as Tudsbury refilled his glass.

“Right here.” Tudsbury went and lit a hanging lamp over a wicker table in mid-room.

Using his swagger stick as a pointer on the map, Shairpe explained that this campaign had all been foreseen. He had himself helped to plan General Dobbie’s staff exercises. Years ago they had predicted where the Japs would probably land for an invasion, and how they would advance. Dobbie had even staged a mock invasion during the monsoon, to prove its feasibility. But nobody in the present Malaya Command seemed aware of the Dobbie studies. Indian and British troops in the north, caught off guard in a wild night storm, had retreated pell-mell from the Japanese beachhead. The Japs had come on fast. Fixed fall-back positions around Jitra, built and stocked to hold out for a month, had fallen in hours. Since then the army had been stumbling backward without a plan.

Moreover, the troops were weakly dispersed over the peninsula — Shairpe flicked the stick here and there — to protect airfields foolishly sited by the RAF without consulting the army. Their defense could not be coordinated, and several fields had already fallen. So the Japs had taken control of the air. Furthermore, they had tanks. There was not one British tank in Malaya. The War Office in London had decided that tanks would be useless in jungle warfare. Unfortunately, Shairpe said in dry high nasal tones, the Japanese had not been informed of this piece of wisdom. Though their tanks were poor stuff, they were punching along unopposed, panicking the Asiatic troops. Antitank obstacles were piled in Singapore, but nobody was putting them in place.