The Empire Trilogy Part 43

Monty interrupted: 'You don't say so, Major? I've heard that the entire might of the Luftwaffe is being thrown against South Kensington.' To Matthew he said: 'Come on, I'll show you around quickly and then we'll beetle off.' They left the Major looking baffled.

'Old bore,' said Monty.

As they made their way round the bungalow Matthew was conscious of Joan's blank eyes and neatly plucked eyebrows turning towards him from time to time, but she still had not addressed a word directly to him. Swinging louvred shutters divided one room from the next, there seemed to be no doors here except for the bathroom and one elaborately marked 'Board of Directors'. They peered into his room which contained nothing except a long, deeply scratched table and a dozen or so chairs. Above the table a huge electric fan laboured noisily. Monty switched on the light at the door. A wiry, middle-aged man clad only in shorts lay stretched on the table, asleep with his mouth open. Monty led the way over to inspect him, saying: 'This is Dupigny. I gather he's supposed to have some sort of job here, G.o.d knows what, though. Hey, wake up!' Monty shook him. 'Francois is what is known as a "sleeping partner",' he jeered. 'Come on, wake up! The j.a.ps have landed in the garden!' But the man on the table merely uttered a groan and turned over. They retreated, Monty saying over his shoulder: 'Francois used to be a big-wig in the Indo-Chinese Government until Petain booted him out. He's convinced j.a.p parachutists are going to land any moment.'

Now at last they were approaching the rooms which had been set aside for the Chairman: a swinging door upholstered in green felt had once divided this part of the bungalow from the rest but now, removed from its hinges, it was merely propped against the wall. Beyond it, nevertheless, one could discern an improvement in the quality and condition of the furnishings. First, they came to an outer room used as an office. Matthew had expected a room that was perfectly bleak and bare of ornament, to match his own view of his father's character. To his surprise the walls were crowded with pictures and photographs of all kinds. He barely had time to glance at them; besides, the presence of the young Blacketts inhibited him. But what was he to make of this sepia photograph showing his father perhaps thirty years ago, holding a tennis racket and with his arm cheerfully around the neck of his smiling partner or opponent? Or of this one of his father good-humouredly presenting something to a group of neatly suited Chinese, each of them with his trousers at half mast? Surely the old tyrant had not smiled more than once in his entire life!

They peered into the bedroom which lay beyond, a great high-ceilinged room which contained two ma.s.sive Edwardian wardrobes, a narrow iron bed with a mosquito net hanging knotted above it like a furled sail, and a bedside table on which medicine bottles still crowded around the stem of a table-light. Matthew, harrowed by the sight of these medicine bottles, withdrew to the office once more. Joan had remained in the background plucking with finger and thumb at the back of her turban. The driver had brought in Matthew's suitcases and now carried them into the bedroom.

'There should be a Chinese boy around somewhere. He'll unpack for you. Let's go and get something to eat.'

A balding young man was hovering diffidently at the door of the office as they pa.s.sed through. He cleared his throat when he saw Monty and said: 'Monty, I wonder could I have a quick word with you?'

'No, you b.l.o.o.d.y can't. I'm busy. And what are you doing here, anyway? You're supposed to be out on the b.l.o.o.d.y estate. We don't pay you to hang around Singapore.'

'I just came in this evening, Monty. You see, it's rather important and I had already mentioned it some time ago to Mr Webb before his illness ...'

'You just came in this evening, did you, Turner? Well, you can b.u.g.g.e.r off back this evening, too. If you aren't satisfied with your pay you can send us a letter of resignation and join the b.l.o.o.d.y Army. Got it?'

'But I've just spoken to Major Archer and he ...'

'I don't care who you've spoken to. I'm telling you to hop it. Get going. Scram!'

'I could eat a horse,' said Joan suddenly, addressing Matthew for the first time and even smiling at him. 'I only had a sandwich at the Cold Storage for lunch. Actually, I'm trying to lose weight. How much do you think I weigh? Go on, have a guess.' Matthew could only blink at her, however, too astonished to reply.

The young man's face had turned very pale and his forehead glistened with perspiration: there was clearly nothing for it but for him to depart, and he did so, but without making any abrupt movement. His image seemed gradually to grow indistinct until presently one could make out pieces of furniture where he had been standing and then he had faded away completely.

'Eight stone exactly!' exclaimed Joan in triumph, clapping her hands. 'I knew you couldn't. n.o.body can. You see, it's partly the way I dress.'

'That miserable cove,' Monty explained in a self-satisfied tone, 'is Robin Turner, the manager of your estate in Joh.o.r.e, though you'd hardly think so the amount of time he spends in Singapore. That little so-and-so and I were at school together and I pulled a few strings to get him a job out here when jobs weren't easy to come by. What d'you know? Within a couple of years he'd got himself married to a stengah stengah and his career out here was as good as finished.' and his career out here was as good as finished.'

'A stengah? stengah?'

'Half one thing and half the other ... a Eurasian ... a mixed drink! You can tell 'em by their chichi accent ... sing-song like Welsh. He's been trying to get her a job as a governess in a white household but n.o.body wants their kids to end up with that accent ... no fear! In this part of the world, Matthew, people don't mind who you have your fun with, provided you do it discreetly (they're pretty broad-minded about that), but they get shirty if you try to mix things socially. Quite a few young fools like Turner have lost their jobs or missed promotion with European companies because they thought they could suit themselves. Young Turner had to resign from the clubs he'd joined, of course, double quick. I warned him it would happen but no, he knew better.' Monty heaved a sigh: his good-nature had been tried to the limit. 'Anyway, you've seen the set-up. Let's go and get something to eat.'

Matthew glanced at Joan. Her moment of animation had pa.s.sed; now she was looking down her nose and plucking delicately at her chest, evidently rearranging whatever she wore under her frock. 'Isn't Francois supposed to be coming?' she wanted to know.

On their way back to the verandah they came across Dupigny, now clad in a billowing white suit, tying his tie by the light of a candle. He was a gaunt, dignified man in his fifties. He said in careful English: 'I shall follow you, Monty. I look forward with delicious alarm to discover what your cook has prepared for us.'

15.

'My dear boy, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you at last to this house and, I should say, to these Straits Settlements which your father did so much to build up in his lifetime.' Monty and Joan had slipped off to change, leaving Matthew to introduce himself as best he could to the elder Blacketts whom he had with some difficulty located in a palatial drawing-room. He had often tried to picture Walter Blackett: he had supposed him to be someone very large and commanding. As it turned out, the man with whom he had just shaken hands was certainly commanding, but only his head was large: it loomed over a compact body and short legs and was covered in thick bristles of white hair which had collected here and there like drifts of unmelted snow on a stark mountainside; further white bristles supplied moustache and eyebrows: from beneath the latter, eyes of an alarming pale blue examined Matthew with interest. 'Come,' he said, 'and meet Sylvia.'

In her day Mrs Blackett had been considered beautiful, but all that now remained of her good looks were a pair of cornflower blue eyes, a shade or two darker than Walter's, set in a puffy, handsome, disappointed face. She still retained, however, some of the mannerisms of a woman accustomed to being admired for her appearance: a habit of throwing back her head to shake away the ringlets which had once tumbled charmingly over her smooth cheeks, or of opening her eyes very wide while you were talking to her, as if what you were saying was of enthralling interest. It made little difference whether you spoke about the emergence of a Swahili literature, about training schemes for electrical engineers, or about the best way to stuff a field-mouse. She would still gaze at you as if fascinated, her lovely eyes open very wide. Sometimes this automatic fascination could have a numbing effect on her interlocutor.

Looking at Mrs Blackett's disappointed, once-beautiful face, Matthew suddenly recognized that Joan was a beauty, though until this moment her appearance had not made much impression on him. It was as if, looking into her mother's faded features, he was confronted by a simplified version of Joan's and could say to himself: 'So that's the sort of face it's supposed to be!' It was a process not very different, he supposed, from thinking a girl was beautiful because she reminded you of a painting by Botticelli: if you had never seen the painting you would not have noticed her. But wait, what was it the Blacketts were saying?

For some moments the Blacketts, each ignoring the other's voice as only a married couple can, had been raining statements, questions and declarations of one kind or another on the already sufficiently bewildered Matthew. In the course of the next few minutes of incoherent conversation they touched on the war, his journey, rationing in Britain, his father's illness, his father's will (Walter took him by the arm and steered him away down the other end of the room, thinking this as good a time as any to remind Matthew of the responsibilities which would accompany his inheritance, but his wife uttered shrill complaints at being abandoned on her sofa and they were obliged to return), the Blitz, the approach of the monsoon, the rubber market and his journey again. Then Walter was summoned to the telephone.

While Walter was absent Mrs Blackett took hold of Matthew's wrist: she wanted to tell him something. 'I think you met my children, Monty and Joan, earlier this evening, didn't you? You know, I hardly think of them as my children at all. We are more like three friends. We discuss, oh, everything together as if we were equals.'

Matthew, who could think of no reply to this confidence, scratched his ear and gazed at Mrs Blackett sympathetically. But where was Kate? he wondered aloud. He had been looking forward to seeing her again. Was she away somewhere?

'Oh, she was here a moment ago,' said Mrs Blackett vaguely. There was silence for a few moments. Walter's voice, speaking emphatically, could be heard from the adjoining room. 'Yes, just three friends,' added Mrs Blackett despondently.

Presently she groped for Matthew's sleeve and with a tug, drew him to his feet. She wanted to introduce him to the people who had just come into the room. But these newcomers, on closer inspection, proved to be merely her children, or 'friends', Monty and Joan. She had evidently thought they might be someone more interesting for at the last moment she hung back, murmuring: 'Oh, I thought it might be Charlie.'

Monty and Joan, ignoring their mother, subsided into armchairs and ordered drinks from a Chinese servant who moved silently from one person to another. They both looked hot, though the air here was pleasantly cool. Joan had exchanged her white cotton frock for a dress of green silk with padded shoulders and leg-of-mutton sleeves. Now that she had removed her turban her sable ringlets tumbled charmingly over her cheeks. Matthew, however, could not help staring at her legs; if he feasted his eyes on them so greedily it was not because they were unusually well shaped (though they were) but because she was wearing silk stockings which had become a luxury in England in the past year. Unfortunately, both Monty and Joan had noticed the direction of his gaze; he saw them exchange a sly glance.

'Kate!'

Kate had been hovering for some time in the next room anxiously awaiting the right moment to make a casual entry. She had been allowed to wear her best dress for besides Matthew an important RAF personage had been invited to supper. Now here she was, looking self-conscious. There was a moment of awkwardness, then she and Matthew shook hands. Kate blushed furiously and, stepping back, almost fell over a chair she had not noticed.

'You know what? what?'

'What?'

'If we were having steak for supper we could grill it on Kate's cheeks.'

'Mother, will you make him stop stop!'

'Really, Monty,' said Mrs Blackett wearily.

s.n.a.t.c.hing up a magazine Kate went to throw herself down on a sofa at the other end of the room. She did not open the magazine, however, but instead picked up a Siamese cat which had been curled up on the floor and began stroking and kissing it, ignoring the rest of the company.

'It's so nice to have a chance to talk,' said Mrs Blackett, 'before the others arrive.'

There was a murmur of a.s.sent but then silence fell again. Monty glanced at his watch; Joan yawned behind scarlet fingernails. Kate continued to stroke the cat at great speed, occasionally planting a kiss on the wincing animal.

Walter came back presently and took a seat beside Matthew, explaining that he had invited Brooke-Popham, the Commander-in-Chief, Far East, and a member of his staff to supper; earlier in the day he had attended a meeting with them about rice distribution. For the truth was, he went on, that in the event of hostilities in the Pacific, Malaya could find her food supplies in jeopardy, at least in the long run, because the greater part of the country's rice had to be imported. Ten years of effort (he himself had served on the Rice Cultivation Committee set up in 1930) still had not induced the native smallholders to grow rice instead of rubber. They were too idle. What could you do with such people?

'I suppose they think that rubber is more profitable,' suggested Matthew.

'I suppose they do,' agreed Walter.

'And they're right, aren't they?'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that that, exactly.' Walter's tone was casual but he glanced sharply at Matthew as he spoke. 'There have been great variations in demand, of course, for rubber. Point is they can't eat it in bad times. Otherwise it would be the perfect crop for a country like this. Rice involves too much hard work. Anyway, there it is, we have to import it in vast quant.i.ties to feed the estate workers.'

'Perhaps the estates should grow rice ...' murmured Matthew. 'It seems unfair to expect the smallholders to grow a less profitable crop simply to allow the estates to go on growing the more profitable crop ...'

'Ah, but we haven't agreed that rice is less profitable.'

'In that case why do the estates ...?'

'Drat!' exclaimed Mrs Blackett, hearing a distant bell. 'They're arriving already and just as we were beginning to have a nice talk.'

Walter had risen before Matthew had time to finish what he was saying. But even so, Mrs Blackett reached the door before he did. It opened to admit Dupigny in his billowing white suit. He and Mrs Blackett exchanged greetings. As she made to lead him deeper into the room she said: 'You, Francois, who always keep so well in touch, must tell us what you think.'

'Of what, Mrs Blackett?'

'Of the situation,' she replied vaguely.

'My dear Mrs Blackett, if you want my opinion the j.a.ps will overrun us in a twinkling. First they exhaust us in the jungle. Then they seize us by the throat.'

'You terrify me, Francois, when you say such things. Except for Matthew you are the first to arrive so you must pay the penalty and come and sit down here with us for a few minutes ... though I can see that what you have to tell us will scare us out of our wits.'

'My apologies,' murmured Dupigny with the exquisite tact of the diplomat and man of the world. He was evidently apologizing not for having cast Mrs Blackett into a state of alarm but for having arrived too early, for thus he had interpreted the words 'first to arrive'.

Mrs Blackett, leading the way across the room, said over her shoulder: 'How smart you look, Francois! I'm so glad to see you are managing in spite of your difficulties.'

In the meantime, Monty had slipped into the chair beside Matthew vacated by his father, and in a malicious whisper explained to him that Dupigny was penniless! a beggar! a total pauper! and that his mother, of course, knew very well that she was being pursued across the drawing-room not only by Dupigny but by his entire wardrobe as well, for the fellow was still clad in every single garment he had been wearing when he had slipped away from Saigon with General Catroux, give or take the odd pair of shorts or shoes he had been able to borrow off Major Archer who luckily for Dupigny happened to be an old chum of his from the Great War.

While Matthew listened to all this and watched Dupigny stoop to brush Joan's knuckles with his smiling lips, he could not help wondering whether he would ever find anything in common with Monty. Dupigny looked up, still smiling, his attentions to Joan's knuckles complete.

'Well, Francois, what's the joke?'

'I smile because I remember that yesterday for the first time in my life I have been mistaken pour un macchabee pour un macchabee ... for a corpse.' ... for a corpse.'

'For a corpse?' cried Joan, suddenly becoming vivacious again. She was evidently a willing victim of Dupigny's charm and polished manners. 'I don't believe you, Francois. What a terrible liar he is!' she grumbled to her mother.

'But precisely, for a corpse!' Dupigny struck an att.i.tude. 'I am just leaving the bungalow when a Chinese gentleman approaches and says to me: "Tuan, are you dead?" I a.s.sure him that to the best of my knowledge I am still alive ...' Dupigny paused to acknowledge the smiles of his audience.

' "But, Tuan Tuan," says our Chinese friend, "are you not then seriously wounded?" On the contrary I tell him that I am never feeling better in my life ... "But then, Tuan Tuan," he says, almost in tears, "you must at least be 'walking wounded' otherwise you would not be here in this street!" '

'I know, it was an air-raid practice!' exclaimed Joan. 'I bet your Chinaman was wearing an ARP armband and a tin hat. But I thought that for corpses they always used Boy Scouts. Does this mean that they are now using grown men?'

'Helas! Every day they grow more ambitious!' Every day they grow more ambitious!'

New arrivals had been shown into the room in the meantime and Mrs Blackett set off once more towards the door, stumbling against a low foot-stool on the way, for the truth was that her lovely blue eyes were far-sighted and she should have worn gla.s.ses. Two officers had just entered. One of these newcomers was Air Chief-Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, a solidly built gentleman in his early sixties whose appearance suggested slightly baffled good nature. He had a square head, bald on top and with very thin hair plastered down at the sides above large, protruding ears. Beneath his white walrus moustache his open mouth lent him the air of wary incomprehension one sometimes sees in people who are not quite sure they have heard you correctly. Each of his powerful forearms cradled a s.h.a.ggy bundle of doc.u.ments which he was now trying to shuffle into a single bundle so that he might grasp the hand of Mrs Blackett. But in doing so a few sheets detached themselves and subsided in a series of gentle arcs to the floor. As he stooped to retrieve them, a few more slipped from his grasp and his air of bewilderment increased. At his side a tall, saturnine staff officer in the uniform of a Major-General watched without expression as the Commander-in-Chief scrabbled on the floor to a.s.semble his papers. 'You'd better let me, sir,' he said taking the bundle and stowing it firmly under his arm. Then he put his swagger-stick down on a side table; an instant later he neatly scooped it up again as Mrs Blackett, turning, failed to notice the table and stumbled into it. She smiled her thanks to Brooke-Popham who had kindly steadied her with a hand to her arm. After a moment's hesitation the General put his stick down again.

Matthew's attention was now diverted by Monty's voice in his ear, whispering a further malicious commentary, this time on the Commander-in-Chief himself: it was common knowledge among those 'in the know' that despite his grandiose t.i.tle Brooke-Popham had frightful difficulty finding anybody who was actually subject to his authority. Certainly not the Navy. And the Governor, too, if he wanted could go his own sweet way. And even General Percival and Air-Marshal Pulford who had replaced the dreaded Bond and Babington still took many of their orders from the War Office and Air Ministry respectively leaving poor old Brookers in his office at the Naval Base with nothing to do but stick flags in maps and, to make things worse ...

But Matthew had to struggle to his feet to shake hands with the Commander-in-Chief. Brooke-Popham shook hands firmly with Matthew and gave him a somewhat rabbity smile. Then he moved on to greet Walter and his place was immediately taken by a dapper gentleman who was following in the Commander-in-Chief's wake: this was Dr Brownley, the Blacketts' family doctor. The Doctor was somewhat distraught this evening for, earlier in the day, after weeks, even months of inner struggle and deliberation, he had purchased an article he had seen in John Little's window in Raffles Place, an article he had longed and l.u.s.ted for with the pa.s.sion of a lover. But now that it had at last become his, somehow the expected consummation had not taken place. Since buying the wretched thing, which he could ill afford, he had scarcely given it a thought. The joyous fever to which he had been subject for months had suddenly left him. 'What's wrong with me?' he wondered, surrept.i.tiously taking his own pulse. And now another distressing thought occurred to him: 'This makes eighteen times in a row that they've invited me here and I still haven't invited them back!' 'You must come to us one of these days', he muttered as he shook hands with Matthew, rolling his eyes in a rather odd and desperate way ... (but fortunately the fellow didn't seem to hear).

'D'you really think the j.a.ps will attack us?' Joan was asking Dupigny.

'Without a doubt,' replied Dupigny emphatically, and an expression of surprise and dismay pa.s.sed fleetingly over Brooke-Popham's honest features as he overheard these words.

'My dear, Francois is in a most macabre mood this evening,' said Mrs Blackett to her daughter. 'I advise you not to listen to him. He has already had me shaking like a jelly.'

'Ah, but it is not amusing, I a.s.sure you,' said Dupigny, seeing that his words had caused Joan to smile, for with Dupigny it was often hard to tell whether he was joking or not and he frequently said the most outrageous things with a perfectly straight face.

'But I understand, Francois, that the j.a.panese specialize in chopping the heads off Frenchmen. They raise a sword above their heads and go ... chop! And Monsieur's head is rolling in the gutter. They say it is quite a sight. I think I shall take my knitting like Madame whatever her name was.'

'You think I am joking, Joan. Not at all! You forget that I know something of them, the j.a.panese. But what is the good?' he added, turning to Matthew as Joan went off laughing. 'You British are so serious. And when you think of France it is always in the manner of that grand emmerdeur grand emmerdeur, Charles d.i.c.kens. As for your self-confidence, that is something miraculous! Did you know,' he pursued, taking Matthew by the arm and leading him aside, 'that your Governor, Sir Thomas, went on holiday for eight months despite the outbreaking of war? That is an example of your phlegmatic British behaviour which fills a poor Frenchman like myself with awe, with admiration and, it must be admitted, with alarm!' He surveyed Matthew with an ironical smile.

'But never mind about that. Let me explain to you instead about this Air-Marshal. Sir Popham, for he is a most unusual sight. I refer not to his appearance, which is, I agree, awe-inspiring ... but to his very presence here in this room. It is something quite unusual.' And Dupigny went on to explain to Matthew in an undertone (how fond everyone seemed to be of whispering a.s.sessments of each other's behaviour behind their backs!) that years of living in Singapore had, it was well known, instilled in Mrs Blackett a deep contempt for the Armed Forces. It had been, in peacetime, a most surprising sight to see her heaping abuse on the old and respected profession of arms, members of which she had for years resolutely refused to invite to her table. Why, even Major Archer, the least martial of men, given an introduction to the Blacketts while making his first tour of the Far East in 1937, had had to be warned to demobilize himself before calling. The poor fellow would otherwise have left a card on which, printed in spidery script for all to see, was his guilty secret: Major Brendan de S. Archer. Major Brendan de S. Archer. And Dupigny laughed heartily at the thought. And Dupigny laughed heartily at the thought.

The fact was, he went on, that Mrs Blackett, though charming in every way, was something of a sn.o.b and this very drawing-room was the meeting-place of one of the most exclusive circles on the island, scarcely even rivalled by Government House. For, as Mrs Blackett willingly used to admit, she had one advantage over the Governor. She was not obliged, as he was, to invite the rabble of dignitaries, military and civilian, whom the war was bringing to Singapore. She could invite whom she pleased. 'All those depressing generals!' she used to exclaim sometimes in the presence of her own more carefully selected guests. 'Poor Lady Thomas!'

And yet, not even the Blacketts, as it transpired, had been able to prevent the invasion of their circle by the War. Since the beginning of hostilities in Europe there had been progressive signs of weakening. He, Dupigny, had been there in person on one occasion when Mrs Blackett had asked Walter whether she should not relax this prohibition of military men from her dining-room 'in the interests of the War Effort'. An admiral or two, perhaps?

Walter had stroked his chin as he pondered his wife's difficult question, groping for the reply of a frank, straightforward sort of man. Well, no, he did not think so. After all, one's principles don't change simply because there's a war on. The problem, after all, was not that the odd admiral was short of food, but that he was tedious company. This had not changed. Very likely it had become worse. With a war raging in Europe the admiral would doubtless feel encouraged to discourse interminably on military and naval matters at the expense of ... well, of the more important things in life.

And so Mrs Blackett had continued for some time to exclude the Forces (except for the Major, of course, who was in any case masquerading as a plain civilian and who had had no connection with the Army in twenty years). But then, little by little, as. .h.i.tler had advanced through Europe, the Allies had made corresponding advances into the Blacketts' exclusive circle ... a colonel here, an air commodore there, in civilian clothes at first but, presently, in uniform. 'Until today we have the pleasure of seeing an Air-Marshal and a General sipping their pahits pahits among us as if it were the most natural thing in the world!' among us as if it were the most natural thing in the world!'

Matthew had listened with interest and amus.e.m.e.nt to this discourse. Dupigny was an entertaining companion and he would have liked to hear more about the Blacketts. But at this moment a distant gong sounded and supper was announced. Joan had disappeared for a few moments but returned just in time to catch her father's eye as they were going into the dining-room. Walter raised his eyebrows as if to enquire: 'Well, what do you think?' Joan did not have to be told what her father's raised eyebrows referred to. She had just slipped into the dining-room ahead of the guests to rearrange the name-cards by the various places, allotting herself a seat where she knew the light would fall to particular advantage on her long neck and delicate features, casting a special sheen on her sable curls when viewed from a certain other place. She smiled at her father and discreetly raised her thumb. Walter, in turn, did not have to be told that his daughter expected to make short work of the task she had set herself.

16.

On his way into the dining-room Matthew, attempting to demonstrate to the Doctor the width of a stream where he had once caught a number of trout, struck Mrs Blackett a blow in the stomach that robbed her of her breath for a moment or two. A fuss then took place. Matthew fell back, disgraced, while the other guests crowded around to help her to a chair, offering her drinks of water and telling each other to move back and give her air. She sat there, gasping. Matthew watched her from a distance, discomfited and surprised: it had not seemed to him that he had struck her very hard. The impression left on his knuckles by the blow was already fading but he was pretty certain that it had never amounted to a good, solid punch, the sort that one might have expected would drop one's hostess to her knees. The unworthy thought occurred to him that Mrs Blackett might be putting it on a bit. But women were, after all, members of a gentler s.e.x. It was distressing, whichever way one looked at it. He had been hoping to start off on a better footing with the Blacketts.

Meanwhile, Dr Brownley, at Mrs Blackett's side, kept saying: 'Highly interesting ... Highly interesting' as if to himself; this caused Walter to look at him askance but actually the Doctor had been saying 'Highly interesting' to Matthew before the blow had been struck and was now merely repeating it. Sometimes a word or a phrase would get stuck in the Doctor's mind and rattle around in it for hours without any apparent reason. Occasionally, if by misfortune the phrase expressed some powerful image, it might stay in his mind for days or weeks. Once, for example, he had heard a dentist admonishing a patient who was inclined to neglect her teeth: 'Your nose will meet your chin!' For several weeks this phrase, alien, violent, rapacious, eating up all other thoughts, had whirled around his mind like a rat in a refrigerator. 'Your nose will meet your chin!' He had thought he would never get rid of it. In the end only the desire for an article he happened to see in Whiteaways had been sufficient to suffocate it. 'Highly interesting,' he murmured as Mrs Blackett, getting to her feet with a sigh, declared herself sufficiently recovered for the dinner to proceed.

This incident, fortunately trivial, did serve a useful purpose, however. It reminded Matthew that he must keep a stern watch over his comportment while at the dinner-table. It was not simply a question of table manners, though years of eating by himself with his eyes on a book beyond his plate rather than on the plate itself (how often had he been roused from his thoughts by something hot and slippery, a grilled fish, say, or a great bundle of spaghetti, dropping into his lap from an incorrectly angled fork!) certainly left room for improvement in that respect. No, it was more a tendency to grow over-excited in the course of what he knew should be an urbane discussion, to utter great shouts of derision at the opinions of his table companions, to gloat over them excessively when he found them guilty of faulty reasoning or some heretical a.s.sumption. Next day he would realize, of course, that he had behaved boorishly and would be filled with remorse, but next day it would be too late. Alas, more than once in Geneva he had found a door closed to him after he had allowed himself to get carried away. With the Blacketts he must watch his step!

Often had the Blacketts wondered precisely how Matthew had spent the years since he had left Oxford. Why had his infrequent letters been sent from hotels in remote corners of Europe? What was it, at a time of life when most young men decide to settle down in a home of their own, that had kept him flitting across frontiers like a lost soul? While these questions were being put to him Mrs Blackett, looking tired after her ordeal, glanced around the table to make sure that everything was in order; her gaze lingered for a moment on an unoccupied chair next to Joan and a shadow of concern pa.s.sed over her features. Meanwhile, a bowl of soused fish was being proffered by the 'boys' to each guest in turn.

Oh, the answer to that was simple, Matthew explained, fishing in the dark tide of vinegar and peppercorns. He had been working for a charitable organization in Geneva called the Committee for International Understanding, vaguely connected with the League of Nations.

'My dear boy,' said Walter, 'I'd be surprised to learn that a single one of those charitable organizations ever did a d.a.m.n thing that was any practical use to anybody. Geneva, if you ask me, is a city of hot air and hypocrites and that's all there is to say about it.' Walter hesitated, glancing at Dupigny who appeared to be rolling his eyes in horror at this opinion of Geneva, uncongenial, perhaps, to a former functionary of the Ministere des Colonies: but it might simply have been that Dupigny was flinching away from the fumes of vinegar rising from the bowl of soused fish which had now been offered to him in turn. He somewhat grimly captured a piece of fish on the serving spoon, inspected it for a moment, sniffed at it, then dropped it back into the dish, indicating to the 'boy' that he did not want any.

'These idealistic committees are a waste of time and as for the League itself ...!'

Matthew chewed his fish calmly even though such a remark would normally have provoked him to vociferous argument: lucky that he had been reminded of his weaknesses a few moments earlier! Moreover, in a sense Walter was right. It was true that the Committee for International Understanding, which was merely one of hundreds of such idealistic barnacles clinging to the hull (already low in the water) of the great League itself, had not achieved any visible success in all the years he had worked for it. In the early days he had spent hour after hour writing letters to politicians urging them to good behaviour in the interests of the 'world community'. Invariably these letters had been answered in vague but polite terms by private secretaries who hinted that there were grounds for optimism. But as for any concrete improvement, well, that was another matter! All that one could say for sure was that 'out there' (Matthew had spent hours during his first winter in Geneva gazing out through the rain-rinsed window of his office in the direction of the lake), in the real world there was a sort of counter-Committee composed of private secretaries whose letter-writing labours exactly mirrored his own and, it had gradually dawned on him, were equally without significance.

And what a dismal place Geneva had been! The steadily falling rain through which one might occasionally, if one were lucky, be permitted to see the brooding ma.s.s of the Grand Saleve across the lake, the bitter wind from the Rhone valley churning the waves to a grey cream beneath the low blanket of cloud, the sensation of oppression which lay over the city during its never-ending months of winter, Geneva was no place for the experiment that was taking place there, the most daring, most idealistic, the grandest, most thrilling and sublime effort to introduce reason and equity into the affairs of nations. And gradually, so it had seemed to Matthew, the proceedings of the a.s.sembly with its myriads of committees and sub-committees emitting a thick fog of quibbling resolutions and differing points of view, which thickly cloaked its good intentions just as mist clouded the Grand Saleve, had come to resemble the Geneva weather. For month after month you could see nothing through the curtains of rain tumbling out of the sky but then abruptly, like a miracle the clouds would disappear, the sun would shine and Mont Blanc would appear white and glittering in the distance across the water. Yet how rare it was that the fog lifted from the a.s.sembly's proceedings! On those rare days, the opening of the great Disarmament Conference in 1932 had been one of them, Matthew had believed himself to be present at one of the great turning-points in the history of mankind. He had been wrong as it had turned out and now he was sadder and certainly older, if not much wiser.

'Did someone mention Geneva?' asked Brooke-Popham who, at first busy with a large helping of fish, had now got the better of it and was free to enter the conversation. 'Met a young chap only the other day who'd been a couple of years there. Said it was a deuced awful hole. What was his name now? M'memory isn't what it was. American. Capital fellow. Very obliging. Let's see now. Colonel ... no, Captain Erinmore. No. D'you know the chap I mean, Walter? Said he knew you and your charming daughter here. Herringport. No...Now let me see ...'

'I don't believe I've had the pleasure, Sir Robert,' said Walter somewhat stiffly, exchanging a quick glance with Joan. The whole table, including Matthew, gazed at Brooke-Popham as if hypnotized.

'I know ...' said Brooke-Popham. A tremor ran through his audience and Joan turned a little pale as she waited for the Commander-in-Chief to speak. There was silence, however, until it became clear that Brooke-Popham, worn out by his long day, had momentarily dozed off. However, his staff officer, the General whose name Matthew had failed to catch, now smoothly took control of the conversation in the place of his slumbering superior and launched into a lengthy reminiscence, not of Geneva but of Lake Maggiore where he had been on holiday in 1925 with his wife, who was a G.o.d-daughter of Chamberlain's wife. And this, by the most fortunate coincidence, for he had never been to Lake Maggiore before or since, had happened to be the historic October of Locarno! What an extraordinary scene he had witnessed! The peasants, their clothes white with dust, tramping in from the surrounding hills with vast hood-shaped baskets of grapes on their backs. And Chamberlain himself, a bizarre figure among these sons of toil. Ah, the General could see him still as if it were yesterday, his monocle glinting in the autumn sunshine as he lolled among the scarlet cushions of his red Rolls-Royce whose long silver horns like trumpets occasionally cleared their metal throats to scatter the rustics from its path: this machine, once the property of a maharajah, had been hired locally, it seemed.

'But...' began Matthew, becoming indignant despite his good intentions.