The Levant Trilogy (62 page)

'No, you wouldn't be an intruder. We see quite
enough of each other, and when we surface, we're glad to have someone else to
talk to.'

'Yes, but for how long?'

Angela laughed and said: 'You know, Bill likes
you, and he's not averse to having two females in tow. Men are like that.
Women, too, probably. I wouldn't mind having an extra man around if he were
amusing. But, for goodness' sake, no more Major Listers. He was impossible.
Bill and I may not be very exciting company but at least we don't cry about our
little bums.'

'Angela darling, it is lovely to be back with
you. My only fear is I'll never be able to repay you.'

'Oh yes, you will. I'll chalk it up, every
penny. But, please, no more about money. You've no idea how boring it is. It's
a bore to be without it, and a bore to have it and have to look after it. There
should be a more satisfactory system of exchange.'

Angela stood up and now, with explanations over,
Harriet supposed they were going to the Dog River, but no. Angela said, 'I'd
better see how Bill's getting on', and going upstairs did not come down again.

Harriet, giving up hope of her, returned to the
garden to look at Beirut far below. Wondering how much it would cost to take a
taxi down to the sea-front, she went and asked the hotel clerk who said: 'There
and back, a wait for you between? I fear, very much.'

'More than five pounds.'

'More, yes, I fear. The taxis are not here. They
come up from Beirut and they must return. It is a bad mountain road so they
charge more. And then this very nice hotel and drivers think, "All rich
people," and charge more. So it is.'

Harriet, contemplating the penalties of
affluence, said: 'I see. Thank you,' and gave up the idea of going to Beirut on
her own.

The days passed in monotonous inactivity. Angela
might say: 'Let's go to Baalbek,' or the Beirut bazaars, or the Dog River, but
in the end, she and Castlebar would retire to their room and not reappear until
suppertime. Harriet's only diversion was to walk along the country road to a
small village where there was nothing to do or see.

Still, here, on the seaward side of the
mountain, the spring was advancing. The fruit trees were beginning to flower
and small cyclamen were opening in the grass verges. The middays were so warm
that Angela and Harriet could take their coffee in the garden. Castlebar, who
did not take coffee, always went upstairs 'to work' and Angela would follow him
there.

It had not occurred to Harriet that Castlebar
was entertaining but now, escorted by what he called his 'two birds', he would
tell stories and repeat conversations he had overheard and, at Angela's
request, repeat his limericks, all of them well known to Harriet. The first
hour after dinner was the time for these performances. Later his stammer grew
worse, his speech slurred and he began to yawn. When he was at his best, Angela
kept him going, reminding him of this story and that.

'Darling one, tell Harriet about the two
officers at the Mohammed Ali Club.'

Castlebar snuffled and uttered, apparently
reluctant until coaxed further: 'Do tell it, darling, it's my favourite story.'

'W-w-well, it was like this. These two young
officers were discussing the arrival of a Sikh regiment in Cairo:
"Nuisance their being here. Means, if the city's overrun, we'll have to
shoot our women."

'"Shoot our women, old chap, why'd we do
that?"

"'Done thing, old chap. Obligatory,
y'know."'

Delighted, Angela threw her arms round
Castlebar: 'You'd enjoy shooting me, wouldn't you, you great, big, glorious
brute?'

Every night, she insisted on at least one of
Castlebar's own limericks and she was as indignant as he was that the Cairo
poetry magazine
Personal Landscape
had
rejected them as too obscene for publication.

Harriet had discovered that beneath the mists of
alcohol, Castlebar's creativity had its own separate life. During their days
at The Cedars, he was, he said, working on a poem.

'When do you do it? In the afternoon?'

'W-w-well, no. Angie and I tend to get drowsy in
the afternoon.' He took out of his pocket a page from a small, ruled notebook:
'I have it here. Before lunch, when I'm shaving, I put it up on the
shaving-mirror and look at it, and I alter a word here and there, and gradually
it builds up. In a couple of weeks, it will be a poem.'

'When it's finished, what will you do with it?'

'Just keep it, and one day I'll have enough for
a slim vol.'

As Harriet gazed at him in a wakening
admiration, Castlebar patted her knee: 'Don't worry about money. You'll be all
right with us. Angle's a great giver. She loves to feel she's got us captive.'

'And you don't mind being a captive?'

'I don't mind anything so long as I can work at
my poetry.'

He smiled and put the paper back in his pocket.
She could see he had his own integrity and though he might be under Angela's
heel, a part of him remained aloof and intact.

She envied him his talent and decided that an
occupation so intensive it made all else unimportant was very much what she
needed herself. She wondered if she could write. During the empty afternoons,
she read through the books in the writing-room bookcase. They had been left
behind by visitors and were mostly forgotten French novels, stilted and dull,
but there was a Tauchnitz edition of
Romola.
Though she thought it laboured in style and lifeless in content, she
read it for lack of anything else to do.

A week after her arrival, Harriet heard a
familiar voice as she entered the dining-room. Dr Beltado, seated with Dr Jolly
and Miss Dora, was declaiming on the possible fusion of all cultures. Glancing
up at Harriet as she passed, he looked puzzled as though wondering if he had
seen her before. Dr Jolly did not notice her but she saw that Miss Dora had
seen her and had no wish to see her.

As the doctor's voice filled the room throughout
dinner, Harriet questioned herself whether she dare intercept him before he
got away again. Angela, seeing her abstracted, asked what was the matter and
heard the whole story.

Swinging round, giving the trio a fierce stare,
she asked at the top of her voice: 'You mean that lot over there? You must make
them pay up. If you don't, I will.'

The other diners, alerted to an interesting
situation, stared at Angela then at Beltado, and again at Angela and back to
Beltado, until Beltado, his voice failing him, began to realize he was a centre
of unwelcome attention.

'I'll just have a word with him,' Angela said
and, crossing to his table, she made her accusations in a voice that could be
heard by all. He had bolted without paying the sum owed to an employee.

Beltado gave Harriet another look and recalled
what this was all about. He began to bluster: 'How was I to know what I owed
her? She was told to put in her account
...'
Bluster had no effect on Angela. Extravagant though she was, she would not
tolerate misdealing, and she demanded that the money be paid there and then.
She came back to Harriet with more than was due to her.

'But I didn't earn all that.'

'Never mind.' Angela closed Harriet's fingers
over the bundle of notes and, alight with victory, kissed her on the cheek:
'You take it. It's your money plus interest. Next time he'll decide it's
cheaper to pay when the money is due.'

Simon was reaching the point of complete
recovery. Guy, on his next visit to the hospital, found he had given up his
crutch and was moving firmly on a stick. His walk was normal except, as he
explained to Guy, his left foot tended to drag a little and his right toe had a
trick of doubling under itself.

The trick came at unexpected moments but he had
it under control. Whenever the toe seemed about to pitch him forward on to his
face, he squared his shoulders and jerked them back and the toe was frustrated.

Simon laughed as though he had outwitted an
enemy: 'Neat that. Greening says the toe's the last hurdle. He said: "Get
your muscles into trim and your feet will serve you
OK."
He told me to just go on working at it, so I'm working
at it. I say to myself: "See that rope over there? You've to shin right to
the top."'

'And can you do it?'

'I have done it. It's a bit of a sweat but I
make myself do it. I think Greening's pretty pleased with me.'

'You like him better these days?'

'Oh, Greening's all right.'

Simon was not only physically better, he had
thrown off the shock to his system and had a new belief in himself.

'I'll be out of here as soon as the toe clears
up. I don't intend to hang around in the convalescent centre. Lots of chaps
stay there for weeks, afraid of going back to the desert, but I'm not like
that. I want to go back.'

Guy still hired the car and took Simon to the
Gezira gardens or the sports fields, but the heat was becoming too oppressive
for these afternoon outings and Simon no longer wanted to be treated as an
invalid. As for Guy himself, he had other things he should be doing.

When he next arrived with the car, Simon said:
'I want to go to the pyramids.'

Not much drawn to the pyramids, Guy said: 'We
could go to Mena and have a drink in the bar.'

Driving through the suburbs where flame trees
held out plates of flowers the colour of tomato soup, Simon was reminded of his
first day in Cairo and his first trip into the desert. That had been a month or
so later than this, but already the wind blowing into the car had the sparking
heat of mid-year and the chromium was too hot to touch. The climate had seemed
to him intolerable yet during his year in Egypt, he had learnt to tolerate it.

The car stopped outside Mena House. When they
stepped into the brazen sunlight, Guy's one thought was to reach the
air-conditioned bar but Simon, without pause or explanation, hurried away in
the opposite direction. Guy followed him, calling, but he did not look round.
Striding across the stone floor on which the pyramids were built, he stopped at
a corner of the Great Pyramid where the stone showed white from the scraping of
many feet. This was the usual place of ascent. Shielding his eyes with his hands,
he looked up to the apex above which the sun was poised, blazing and
scintillating in a sky white with heat.

When Guy caught him up, he said: 'I'm going to
climb it.'

'Not now, surely?'

'Yes, now.' He turned to look at Guy with an
exultant determination and Guy could only try and reason with him.

'Simon, you know, this is foolhardy. If you
slipped, you could undo all the work they've done on you.'

'I won't slip.' He held out his stick: 'If you'd
just look after that
...'

Guy took the stick and put it on the ground:
'You don't imagine I'd let you go alone?'

Simon laughed: 'Good show. Let's see who gets
there first.'

The blocks that formed the pyramid were about
three feet in height. Guy, with his face towards the stonework, put his hands
on the first block and pulled himself up till he could kneel on top of it. He
got to his feet and tackled the second block.

Simon shouted to him: 'Look, this is how Harriet
did it.' Turning his back on the pyramid, he jumped his backside up on to the
block, swung his legs after him, stood up and sat himself on the second block.

To Guy, watching, it seemed to be done with one
movement and he remembered Harriet going up in the same way, wearing her black
velvet evening-dress that had never been the same again.

'It's easy,' Simon said and Guy agreed. It
looked extraordinarily easy but he preferred to keep his eyes on Simon and
laboured up in his own way, keeping immediately below his companion with some
idea of acting as a safety net.

Simon, in high spirits, laughed with pleasure at
the speed of his ascent and the noise brought out the 'guides' who bawled: 'Not
allowed. Must have guide,' and shook their fists when they were ignored. But it
was too hot for indignation and they soon retreated to whatever shelter they
had found.

Half-way up, Simon's pace slackened. Both men
were soaked with sweat and Simon, pausing to get his breath, took off his shirt
and spread it on the stone. Guy did the same thing and while they stood for a
few minutes, he hoped Simon would now give up. Instead, he went on at a less
furious pace. Guy, below him, could see the scar of his wound rising above the
waistband of his slacks. It was red and the skin looked thin. Guy, fearing it
might break open, wondered where he could go for help if help were needed. But
Simon did not need help. He was well ahead of Guy and reaching the top where
the apex stones had been removed, he passed out of sight. Guy, moving more
quickly, followed and found him lying spreadeagled on his back, his arms over
his eyes.

Throwing himself down beside him, Guy asked:
'How do you feel?'

'Fine.' He was too breathless to say much and
lay for so long without moving that Guy became uneasy again. How was Simon to
be transported down if he could not transport himself? Before this unease could
become anxiety, Simon lifted his arms and seeing Guy's worried expression,
burst out laughing.

'I did it.'

'Yes. It was pretty impressive.'

'I feel a bit dizzy, though.'

Guy felt dizzy, too. Looking around him at the
dazzle of the desert, he wondered why anyone should want to come up here. There
was little to see. In the distance, wavering and floating in the liquid heat,
were the odd shapes of the Saccara Pyramids. Not much else. The two men might
have been on a raft in a yellow sea; or rather, on a grill beneath an intense
and dangerous flame.

He shook Simon by the shoulder: 'Come on. If we
don't move out of this, we'll both get sun-stroke.'

Without speaking, Simon rolled over and over
till he reached the edge of the floor then he let himself down to the step
below. Here an edge of shade was stretching out but not enough.

'If you can manage it,' Guy said, 'we'd better
get down to the hotel and have that drink.'

'Oh, I can manage it.' Standing up, Simon
staggered slightly and made a face at Guy: 'Muscles stiff. Not yet in tip-top
form, but they soon will be.' He sat on the edge of the block and dropped down
to the one below: 'Piece of cake, this. I wish Greening could see me.' His
shirt was dry again and at the bottom, he picked up his stick: 'I don't think
I'll need this much longer.'

'What about the toe?'

'The toe? Good Lord, I'd forgotten about it.
That's what Greening said. I'd only to forget I couldn't do it.'

He talked on a note of triumphant assurance but
for all that, he was glad enough to sink into a chair in the bar and take the
glass Guy put into his hand: 'Cheers. Just the job.'

There were half a dozen or so officers in the
bar and Guy noticed that as Simon entered, leaning lightly on his stick, they
had reacted very differently from the men at the swimming-pool. There, pallid
and strained, he had been a dismal reminder of the reality of war. Here, his
young face still flushed from the climb, he was the shining hero.

He and Guy sat for a while, silent and glad of
rest, drinking their chilled beer, then Simon put his hand into his shirt
pocket and took out a thin piece of card: 'This came two days ago.'

It was one of the new air-mail letters,
photographed and reduced, and Guy had to tilt his glasses in order to read the
miniature handwriting:

Dear
Simon, Sorry I can't say 'darling' any more. I know you'll be upset but it's a
long time since you went away and you didn't write much, did you? I don't
suppose it was much fun in the desert but it isn't much fun here, either. I've
been lonely and what did you expect? Well, the long and the short of it is I've
met someone else. Not getting letters from you, my thoughts turned to Another.
I like him very much and he makes me happy and I want a divorce. It wasn't much
of a marriage, was it?

Ever yours,

ANNE

P.S.
Your mum tells me you were wounded. I'm sorry but you didn't even let me know
that.

Guy read it through twice before he said: 'You
didn't tell me you were married.'

'Yes. We rushed into it before I went to join
the draft. We only had a week at the Russell Hotel before I left. She's right,
it wasn't much of a marriage. She came to see me off at the station. All I
remember is her standing there crying and waiting for the train to take me
away. I thought: "poor little thing" - that's all: a girl crying and
me looking at her out of the carriage window. I wouldn't know her now if I
passed her in the street.'

'Have you a photograph?'

'No. I had a snap but it fell out of my wallet
somewhere in the desert. I don't even know when it went. I just found one day
it wasn't there. Well, I don't need to feel sorry for her any more. I'm glad
she's found someone who makes her happy. I only hope he's a decent bloke.'

'I wouldn't take it too seriously. People get
carried away in wartime. Probably, when you get back, you'll find she's
waiting for you.'

'Oh, no. It's better as it is. She can have a
divorce and welcome. It's the best thing for both of us.' Simon, with Edwina's
face glowing in his thoughts, smiled and pushed the letter back into his
pocket.

'Have you decided yet what you'll do when the
war's over?'

'I don't know. What is there left to do?'

'Everything. You've got a whole lifetime ahead
of you. Even if you were accepted for the regular army, it would only be a
short-term commission. You still have to face the future. I suppose, whatever
happens, you'll return to England?'

'I suppose so, but I'm not going to stay any
longer than I can help. It's my Mum and Dad. Every letter I get from them, they
say they're just waiting for me to come back and tell them about Hugo. They say
that's all that's keeping them alive. They say, "We know you'll tell us
everything," as though there was something secret about his death. I've
told them everything. Everything I know, that is. What else is there to tell?
It's all in the past now. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to be
reminded of it. I feel I can't go through it all again.'

'But if it means so much to them
...'

'They should try to forget it. Instead, they
keep on as though I'd be bringing him back with me.'

'In a way you will be bringing him back, because
you looked so much alike.'

'Still, I'm not Hugo. When they see me, it will
make things worse for them. They'll realize they used to have two boys and now
there's only one. They make me feel responsible. Can't you imagine what it will
be like, going over it all again and again. I feel sorry for them but somehow,
I don't know, they've become strangers.'

'It will be different once you get home. You'll
feel you've never been away.'

'I don't know that I want to feel like that. I
can't pretend nothing has changed. I've changed. I don't feel I belong there
anymore.' Simon's mouth, that during the days of his dependence, had seemed
tenderly young and defenceless, now closed itself firmly. He had been a sick,
despondent boy; now he was a young man conscious of his strength and his
individuality in the world. Guy did not feel altogether pleased by this
developing self-reliance which hinted of selfishness and he said sternly:
'Still, they are your parents. You will have to let them talk about Hugo; you
owe it to them. It will be a comfort to them. And, remember, you're all
they've got now.'

Simon finished his beer and put down his glass:
'Yes, I suppose you're right. Of course I'll go home and do what I can for
them. I didn't mean I wouldn't, but I'm not staying in England. I feel now as
though the whole world's waiting for me.'

Driving back to the hospital, he said gleefully:
'You know, I told myself if I did it, if I got to the top, I'd apply for a
return to active service. They may suck me in an office at first but
any-thing's better than hanging round being treated like an invalid.'

'I suppose you'll be sent to Tunisia.'

'Hope so. I wouldn't want to be kicking my heels
like those chaps we saw in the bar.'

Guy felt a drop in spirits, thinking that Simon,
too, would be lost to him. But that had to happen sooner or later. Simon had
reached the last stage of recovery and must return to normal life; or rather,
to the killing, destruction and turbulent hatred that these days passed for
normal life. As he considered the emotions of violence that must blot out all
other emotions, Guy said: 'War is an abomination yet I could almost envy you.'