Forgotten Life (9 page)

The airstrip was marked only by a small windsock, rippling in the new winds. The strip consisted of a runway of knee-high grass perhaps two hundred yards wide and a mile or more long. Perhaps it had once been designed as a fire-break. Nothing was to be seen but grass and trees, stretching across the plain. No one else was about, not a shack, not a truck, no personnel in sight. We had water and rations but no means of communication with the world.

The four of us settled in the shade of the trees and waited, smoking, chatting. Idle chat. I had found no way of communicating my inward feelings to my friends, sensing that anything I said on an emotional level would be laughed at. Nor did I impart my feelings to my parents; my few letters home were miracles of superficiality. Now, under the trees, I found myself alone in having some
regrets at leaving Burma. With a great victory behind us and the unknown ahead, here was surely an hour of communing. We continued to talk in trivialities, all perhaps afraid to reveal our true selves.

One thing we vowed, sprawling in the shade, was that when we got back to the Blight we would tell everyone what we had been through. We would – as the expression had it – ‘grip them ragged'. The Ancient Mariner would have nothing on us. It can be seen that this process of telling all would have had great therapeutic value. I was with three men who were about to be sent home after long service abroad; for myself, I had still a lot of time to serve out. So I never knew if the requisite grips were applied. But for me, returning to Blighty when the war had been over some while, and put out of mind, I found that no one wished to hear. The jungle experience was too alien.

Why did no novelists or poets spring up to celebrate the experience of Burma from the common soldier's point of view? It was an undemocratic war. Only officers spoke about it later – heroes like Bernard Fergusson and ‘Mad' Mike Calvert, and of course Slim's own fine book on the campaigns,
Defeat into Victory
. They all stuck to autobiography or fact. Hardly a poet spoke up. There was Alun Lewis, but he shot himself before going into action.

One of Lewis's poems tells how:

It's a lie, an officer's snotty lie; Lewis did not know what he was talking about. Delightful irony reposed in singing those ‘dance-songs'. Their superficiality, like our chatter, served to cover momentous upheavals of feeling. ‘Paper Doll' and ‘Moonlight Cocktail' had marvellous surreal effect in our jungle hideouts.

We woke the next morning under the great trees, eating a hunk of bread and marmalade for breakfast without washing. The place was as waterless as a desert – and as deserted. No sign of our plane,
and the monsoon-bearing wind blew stronger. The smell of smoke came to us.

Hour succeeded hour. We strolled about in the sun, hats off – it was our pride that we never got sunstroke or wore topis, as an earlier generation of regular soldiers had done. The smoke could be seen. It thickened until gradually it shrouded the blue sky. A forest fire was approaching. We could hear its roar and crackle. It was as if a stampede of animals was coming our way.

What were we to do? There was no escaping from our position. The fire was approaching at brisk walking pace, burning up the trees in huge brands on either side of the airstrip, triumphant and furious. Rapidly it came, and still no rescuing plane.

We moved into the centre of the grass strip. Jungle blouses went on, to protect our skins from flying sparks. The sky was black, the whole forest on either side blazing red. We crouched to the ground. The heat seemed to swell about us.

The fires on either side moved parallel with each other like friendly rival expresses. Linking them across the open space ran a wave of flame, consuming the grass, turning what was green black, leaving behind it cindered ground. It dashed towards us like a rip tide.

Standing, we heaved our kit on to our backs. As the wave reached us, we jumped. That is how you evade a forest fire. You jump over it.

‘So much for fucking Burma,' said Bert Lyons.

There we stood, in a land of black ash. The great fire swept majestically on, about its own purposes, leaving smouldering destruction on either flank. We looked at each other and laughed. Then we lit up cigarettes.

‘Where's that bloody plane?' we asked.

We spent another night out in the open, on the burnt earth. Next morning, an aged Dakota with the American star on its wings landed on the black airstrip; we climbed readily enough into its hold, and soon were flying westward, over the Chin Hills towards India and a quieter life.

 

History is what happens to contemporary events when they have receded enough for us to draw a moral from them. What is the moral of the Burma campaign?

That change is all. Three years after the victory of the Forgotten Army, Burma was granted independence. Although the Japanese had packed their bags and left, Britain was unable to regain the confidence of the Burmese people, who had twice seen their fair country reduced to a battlefield – Burma, that most religious of countries. Nor could the brave Indian Army be relied on to hold down Burma by force. India was being returned to the Indians. That was the British will: while behind that will was American pressure; righteous to a fault about British and Dutch Far East possessions, the United States nevertheless let itself be led into another war that has been seen since to have caused more damage and destruction in Vietnam, Cambodia, and surrounding regions than even the Japanese dreamed of.

Nineteen thousand men of British and Commonwealth origin – the greatest number being Indian other ranks – died in the Irrawaddy crossings by Mandalay and Meiktila. In the earlier battle of Kohima, over two thousand men of British 2 Div, for which I was a pale-skinned reinforcement, died. All told, in Burma, there were seventy-one thousand British and Commonwealth casualties. Japanese casualties have been numbered at 185,000.

A memorial was erected to the British dead at Kohima. On the memorial is carved a free translation of a Greek epitaph, which reads:

Sadly, it was no one's tomorrow, despite the brave words. The British got out. The Burmese then sank under a repressive regime. Various kinds of struggle still divide it. Visitors from outside are scarcely welcome.

The bamboo grows beside the rivers where once we so bravely, so fruitlessly, drove from Milestone 81, through Kohima and Imphal, down the Tiddim Road, across Chindwin and Irrawaddy, to a ruined Mandalay. A lot of tomorrows lie buried along the route.

Clement sat over his brother's old exercise book for a while, engaged in unconstructive musings. Then, sighing, he made a few phone calls. As he was setting the phone down, the intercom buzzed. It was Michelin.

‘Your supper's all ready, Clem. And I'm just off out.'

‘Got another party?'

‘Yes, another party …'

‘Oh, well, enjoy yourself.'

He went downstairs slowly, dragging his steps so that anyone observing him might imagine there was something weighty on his mind. Downstairs, where the temperature was cooler, Sheila was in the conservatory pouring herself another glass of white wine.

‘Where's your glass?'

‘Oh, I left it on my desk upstairs.'

‘Doesn't matter. I'll get another. It's so hot, Michelin has laid a table outside by the pool for us. She's just gone.'

‘Another party …'

‘Good drinking evening.'

She was pouring wine slowly into the glass she had taken from the cabinet, letting the neck of the bottle chink once against the rim of the glass to emphasize the benefaction of what she was doing. It seemed to him, watching her, that her strong nose was slightly less
sharp this evening, as if a certain watchfulness, apparent in her manner during their time in the States, had now relaxed.

Passing him the brimming glass, she said, ‘If you go outside, I'll bring the food. It's all ready.'

The garden was still mainly in sunlight, slanting over the old brick walls. The little pool was in the shadow cast by the Farrers' house next door. But it was warm there, and in the patio area Michelin had laid a pink linen cloth on their white conservatory table.

‘Did you have a dip?' he asked, when she emerged with avocados.

‘I spent a whole hour on the phone catching up with news since we've been away.' She passed on various items of gossip.

‘The film contract's come alive again,' she said.

‘I don't believe it.'

They chatted about the Kerinth film contract with Obispo Artists. A letter had been awaiting her from Tarleton Broker, film agent in London for the Green Mouth novels. A deal with Obispo had been on and off for over a year; now they were involved with a director-producer called Calvin Boas Lee, whom both Sheila and Clement had met, and liked tolerably. Now the deal was alive. Tarleton had a contract ready. After they had demolished most of Michelin's strawberry shortcake, Sheila produced Tarleton's letter, and they read it over between them.

‘So I'll go up to London on Thursday and work over the contract page by page with Tarleton.'

‘Looks as if you're going to be rich and famous. Even more of both.'

She pulled a face at him. ‘Don't say it. It frightens me. Poor me. Everyone will hate me even more.'

‘Love you even more.'

She squeezed his hand. ‘I'll keep my head. Promise.'

‘Don't count your chickens, love.'

‘That's right …'

 

Thursday, the day that Sheila took the train up to London to see her film agent, was also the day of the week when Clement drove to
Headington for his regular appointment with a fellow analyst. This analyst, a Jungian like Clement, was a Czech exile called Mrs Vikki Emerova. They had known each other for some years, and occasionally met in the Department of Psychiatry in the Warneford, or at official functions. He always addressed her as Mrs Emerova, and she him as Dr Winter.

Clement's clinic, which these days he held only once a week, was in central Oxford. Mrs Emerova had a downstairs room in a small Edwardian house with a neglected garden off Headington High Street. Headington was full of similar houses with similar rooms, each occupied by people much like Mrs Emerova. The Emerovas of this world sat in chairs listening to the woes of people sitting opposite them. Anything could be said to them. One could talk in intimate detail about sexual perversions, or one could enter on a lengthy diversion concerning politics. One could be fearfully academic or downright coarse. The Mrs Emerovas would never flinch.

Unnatural though this arrangement might appear, many of the academics of Oxford, burdened with personal problems, made their pilgrimage weekly to the shabby rooms in the discreet houses of Headington.

In the back garden at Mrs Emerova's were three ancient apple trees, and nothing else. The grass did not seem to grow. It was never short and never particularly long. Perhaps, Clement surmised, there were special nurseries – garden centres, they were called nowadays – in the wilds beyond Headington, in Wheatley and Holton and Horspath and Garsington which supplied special grass seed for analysts' gardens, guaranteed to lull their clients with its monotony. His own clinic had no garden.

Once a year, in the Headington spring, the three ancient apple trees burst into blossom. Hope sprang into the breasts of the analysands. Christ may have died for them, God might have created the world for them … All was possible … But come the autumn and the fruits were as green and acid as the lives of those who looked out upon them from Mrs Vikki Emerova's window.

‘But she had it off with him in the next room. This was in Boston.
In our hotel – the well-named Luxor Hotel. A little Spanish type, five feet one and pretty weedy, I'd say. Always had a smarmy sort of grin for Sheila. I watched him. I saw him last year and was friendly. Arthur Hernandez. More properly Arturo, I'm sure. Her editor at Swain Books – not that he seems to do much editing. Those guys have generally tried their hand at writing, had no joy at it, but ever after think they have special insights into writers' lives. He's probably straight out of university, probably only twenty-three or twenty-four – half her age. No real experience of life. They probably did it last year too, and I never found out. There I was, being nice to him. Oh, of course he was all over me when I arrived at the Luxor from New York. By that time, they'd probably been doing it all round the States. It's the sense of betrayal … I can't see how Sheila could possibly – And all the time he was “Green Mouth” this and “Green Mouth” that. I said to him, “Look, when we're not performing in public, couldn't you relax and call her Sheila? Green Mouth is only her trade name.” And he said, “Oh, I do zees only to show respect.” Respect, and the whole time he was bloody well shafting her. I mean, there are rules about these things, and the Americans know that as well as anyone else. I've never been anti-American. Rather the reverse. Of course, Arthur Bloody Hernandez is probably from Puerto Rico. I wondered if I wrote to Swain and complained if they'd sack him. Sheila is their most valuable property. They wouldn't want to lose her. Of course, I suppose they might argue that it was Arthur Hernandez, damn him, by offering his services, who kept her there instead of with a bigger organization. I know Random House made overtures. They have business arrangements with her publisher on this side of the Atlantic. Maybe I should try to persuade her to – no, I couldn't do that. It wouldn't work.'

‘You feel more anger against him than against Sheila?'

‘Really, I don't blame her. Well, not much. I have always been generous. Quite generous – in fact, more generous in that respect than she's ever been with me, by a long chalk. It was just a passing fancy – well, no real harm done. One must have a perspective, yet all the while the other person just goes on acting however they feel
like, without restraint. I really don't think Sheila has much power of self-analysis. You can see that in her novels. No kind of self-analysis. Her characters, even the sensitive ones, just barge ahead and
act
. She is very warm natured. All credit for that. I do try to be generous. Even when I walked in and caught them at it – there was her big soft white bum, Mrs Emerova, she on top and you could hardly see him at all, except for two nasty little thin hairy legs, like a beetle crushed by a cream puff – I'll never forget it. You may – you should – try to be detached but it still hurts deeply to catch your wife
in flagrante delicto
, and on top, too. Jealousy is hard to eradicate. She gave me such a look. I simply backed away into the sitting room. Knocked over a vase of flowers. Couldn't think what to say. At such a time, you find yourself completely at a loss. Now why should I have felt such a fool? I suppose it's because – there's a whole tradition behind it, a whole rich tradition. The cuckolded male is a figure of fun, even to himself. It's not so bad for a woman who catches her husband at it. She tends to engage more sympathy, don't you consider? It's something to do with the shape of the sexual organs, basically, I suppose. The male equipment looks a lot funnier than those rather pretty little purses you women have. I just stood there shaking but, in a minute, out
he
came, all dishevelled and looking a bigger fool than I felt, tucking in his shirt. When he saw me, he made a dash for the door to the corridor, so I ran after him and managed a good kick up the arse to help him on his way. That was the most satisfying bit of the whole affair. I rather hurt my left leg doing it.'

‘Kicking him satisfied you?'

‘What do you think? Then out
she
came, dressed, but hair dishevelled. Wanted a drink and a cigarette. Did I tell you she smokes when she's on these tours? Cigars if nothing else is available. She's like a demon. Well, it is all a bit testing. I sympathize with her and I do see why she's got to do it. And I said to her, quite quietly and decently, “I know you're under pressure but this has got to stop”, and she said, in a sort of level voice, “I'm enjoying it too much to stop.” That's what she said. “I'm enjoying it too much to stop.” As cool as you like, Mrs Emerova. I'll tell you the effect that sentence had on me,
shall I? She never wrote a sentence half as powerful. It just destroyed me. I suppose I didn't look any different. She gave me a drink from the drinks cabinet and I drank it. But something went inside me. I still feel … of course I do. It was bad enough to be told she was enjoying it. One does enjoy these affairs. The surreptitiousness, the sense of … But to rub it in … And then to say point blank that she meant to continue, whatever I felt about it. What I felt about it didn't matter to her in the slightest. How can you recover from that? It's so unlike her. Generally she's so considerate. But perhaps she's been like that all the time. I mean, how long have we been married – and all the time she was secretly quite indifferent to what my feelings were if they got in the way of her pleasure? “I'm enjoying it too much to stop …” Christ, what an insult. It's as if I'm bleeding inside and yet, now we're back home, I have to continue as normal. We both continue as normal, as if nothing had happened. It's grounds for divorce, isn't it?'

‘Do you want a divorce?'

‘I don't know. I don't know what I want. It's a crowning insult, isn't it?'

‘Did she mean it as an insult? Was she not also upset at that moment?'

‘I should hope she was! Isn't it at such moments that the truth slips out? How often had they had it off together? Not just in Boston. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles. Can you imagine, they might have done it in Salt Lake City? Ugh … At least I seem to have put paid to Hernandez. I made sure they weren't alone together for the rest of the time we were there. And I don't think he had the appetite for it after being found out. Men don't, do they? There are rules to the game, you know, and if you're caught out, fine, then however much it costs you say you're sorry and you stop. You stop, don't you, for the sake of the other person's feelings? Isn't that the rule? You and the other woman know you run that risk. If found out – all over. Finish. Isn't that the rule?'

‘Do you think of it as a game with rules?'

‘There are rules, aren't there? Remember your ethology. In
everything there are rules, in every species. Otherwise civilization falls apart. Even when two nations threaten each other, rules remain. If that wasn't so, then the planet would have been destroyed long ago. Even nations which hate each other obey rules, almost unwittingly. How much more so between individuals. How am I going to live now? Am I supposed to go on as if nothing had happened?'

‘What has really happened? Sheila returned to England with you, didn't she?'

‘I can't talk to you, Mrs Emerova. You're supposed to offer me something, you know. A therapist is supposed to use his or her own feelings in the service of the patient. That's me. How should I best behave in this mess?'

‘Do you feel it is a mess? Your marriage is continuing, isn't it?'

‘It's continuing, yes. But for how long? What's she thinking? Is she longing for Hernandez every moment of the day? “I'm enjoying it too much to stop.” It puts me off my stroke, I don't mind admitting. Yes, I do mind admitting it. I feel that when we have intercourse she'll just be thinking of him all the while, and making comparisons.'

‘Does that make you feel inferior?'

‘Oh, Christ, it makes me feel bereaved. Our calling has little defence against bereavement. How am I to know what she's thinking?'

‘May you not suppose that she wants everything to continue as normal?'

‘What right has she to hope that? I'm the one who should be deciding about that! Instead, I'm arranging for a party for her next Thursday, to celebrate her latest effusion …'

‘Doesn't that suggest that you both want everything to continue as normal?'

‘Well, it can't continue as normal, can it? That's not possible. Not while I still have so much anger inside me. Okay, under the stress of the tour, when she's the cat's whiskers and the whole world's bending an ear to her, I quite understand that then she's feeling so good that she wants the odd extra bit of adulation – I mean, this guy Hernandez, he has no interest in her as such, he's only interested because she's
the grand and glorious Green Mouth who brings so much money into his company, whose new novel has got 1.5 million copies in print. It's impersonal on both sides, in a way, all part of the big Green Mouth act – I
understand
that, it's my business to understand. Good for her! But “I'm enjoying it too much to stop …” Am I supposed not to feel angry and hurt because I'm an analyst? What do you expect?'