A Gentle Occupation Read online

  ‘Your fault.’ Rooke smiled wanly and scratched a knee. ‘I mean that word “replacement” followed by “surplus” rather did it. Nasty ring of finality to them. After five years of loyal service it came as a bit of a belly-blow. And all this …’ he waved his arm wide across the deserted Boulevard and the silent jungly gardens, ‘all this is a bit depressing; let’s face it.’

  Nettles accelerated suddenly, setting up little spirals of tumbling dust. ‘Oh really! It’s not as bad as all that. It’s really quite jolly, you know. And all suburbs are pretty vile, aren’t they? From Pinner to Penang. Terribly dreary … but there is really quite a lot of life going on here which you can’t actually see yet. Give it time. It’s really very amusing here, right up to curfew … and after that if you know the right places to go.’

  Rooke shook his head doubtfully. ‘I really can’t believe it’s gay …’

  Nettles cleared his throat swiftly and signalled to the empty street that he was turning right. ‘Very … I honestly don’t think it’ll take you long to find that out, and this is “home”, the big villa up on the left there, 12 Brabantlaan, but don’t put it on your next PC to Auntie … as soon as you’ve had a shower and settled in you’ll have your brimming glass of champagne. I’m Mess President this month, lucky old you, and after that you’ll be as bright as a bee!’

  ‘Or gay as a lark,’ said Rooke ruefully.

  ‘That,’ said Nettles as he turned sharply into the overgrown gravel drive of the villa, ‘would be divine.’

  He rubbed his head affectionately against the wall, two or three times, with a gentle stroking movement much as he might have done against the neck of a favourite horse. He liked the wall. Solid, secure, safe. His wall. The wall of his room. Good wall. Kind wall. Save me wall. He leant away and ran his hand gently over the smooth pattern: roses and something. Ribbons. Good, sweet, roses. In the centre of the room his bed ready waiting under the draped mosquito net. Trunk and bed-roll neat in a corner. Small wooden card table. One chair in the wide bay window, apart, stiff, nervous, like visitors in a hospital. What a silly thing to think. Red-tiled floor, scratched white paint: over the empty fireplace, fitted with an electric plug, portrait of a man with tall, fluted glass, winking knowingly. Drinking. Along the floor of the wall against which he was so securely leaning, craving comfort, a twelve foot stuffed crocodile, jaws agape, claws spread, glass eyes dulled with dust. He kicked it gently and bent to stroke the wrinkled hide. But it hurt his head to do so. Slowly he straightened up and looked at the winking man over the fireplace. Drinking. He’d been drinking himself all day. He’d admit that. Very happily. I’ve been drinking all bloody day. Only thing to do. He sat down carefully on the crocodile’s back and rested his head on his knees. Recount. Two, or was it three beers at the Club place? Not more. Then the champagne as promised. ‘Brimming glass.’ Brimming glasses. Nettles said a whole bottle to himself. Wine at lunch too. Don’t forget that. Let’s not forget wine at lunch. Lunch was fun. If you like End-Of-The-Pier-Humour. Who’s next for the hangman? Penny in the slot, the doors open jerkily, the priest staggers out, the trap door falls. Nettles is the priest. The trap door is just under these red tiles. Below this beautiful crocodile. No wonder they didn’t loot him. Oh shit.

  But lunch had been fun … had been very civilized and pleasant. Odd food, rather hot, and lots and lots and lots of iced beer as well. Too much. Everyone had been very kind and cheerful. ‘Most kind. Too kind of you all.’ Very welcoming especially when you consider he was only a surplus replacement Captain. But of course they’d all been very jolly and cheerful because someone had just got their Repat papers, the freedom sign. ‘Merdeka’ in English was really Repatriation. Simple. The wine and iced beer at lunch might, I only say ‘might’ mind you, have been a mistake. He hadn’t felt drunk then. But now he did. He sat back and rolled his head gently against the roses and the, what were they? Ribbons. Or some such thing. Everything rolled a bit. Not much. A bit. He stroked the glass eyes of the crocodile. They suddenly gleamed bright, huge yellow orbs. He’d had a pee first, that’s right; as soon as they reached the place he’d found the lavatory and that was much better. And then refilled on the promised ‘brimming glass’. And someone had shown him to his room, this room, ground floor of the house. ‘Mind you don’t get a jolly old terrorist johnny through the windows!’ someone had said. ‘Advise you to lock up all your shutters before you go to bed, they are inclined to chuck grenades all over the place at night-time.’ Grenades at night-time. Remembering, he got up slowly and crossed, unevenly, to the windows to shut himself in. But the bearer, or someone, had done that already. The bolts were run home. He was quite secure. Jolly kind of someone. Or the bearer. Or someone. He leant against the low sill. After the champagne and the pee, then what, Oh! yes! To change. The shorts, so as not to shock the vicar. General. Who didn’t even turn up. But everyone else did. Couldn’t remember the faces. But pleasant, smiling, because of the birthday party or the Repat or whatever it was. Not because of his arrival, but it seemed like it at the time. Most kind. Gaunt was, anyway. Very pleasant man, Gaunt, introduced himself straightaway, no fiddle-faddle. ‘Major Gaunt. B.M.’ Handsome all right, bloody cold. Eyes like blue flints. Very much the military man, Regular Army, Bannou Horse, North-West Frontier. Very upright. A lot of talk about horses, polo, the Gymkhana he was determined to try and organize. Had his own little silver tankard, won it for something. Very proud of it, had had it years. Drank from it slowly in little measured sips. Very careful man, watching everyone intently.

  ‘You’ve got a name?’ Odd remark.

  ‘Of course I’ve got a name. Rooke.’

  ‘Got another?’

  ‘Got two actually.’

  ‘One’ll do.’

  ‘Benjamin.’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Better. Mine’s David. Been out long?’

  He hadn’t really listened, looked about the room over his clutched silver tankard through the flinty eyes. Thin lips. Rather a cruel sign, wasn’t it? Thin mouth, thin-lipped smile: when he did the eyes didn’t. What age? Oh, about thirty something. One or two. Not more. Good figure, straight back, muscular; very fair hair very short, strong wrists and very white teeth, rather small and neat and together like a cat’s. Dressed for riding. Bush jacket, stock, boots and spurs. Something about him. Didn’t like him but did. Don’t know. Contradictions. I’ll take off my boots. He moved and sat down on the single visiting chair and started to unlace them. Not so easy on the head. He lifted one foot gently on to his knee. Better. And then the gaiters. They clattered to the red-tiled floor one after the other.

  ‘Got everything you need? They made you comfortable? What’ll you be doing here?’ He hadn’t been interested really, was still looking at everyone else in the ante-room.

  ‘I’m not actually doing anything here. Just a visitor. I’m a surplus replacement, you see.’

  Gaunt had given him a sudden look, wiped a thin finger over thin lips, clasped the silver tankard to his chest and smiled. The thin smile with the white cat’s teeth. ‘It happens to us all. Unserviceable. Never mind. Have a pleasant stay … they aren’t bad in this Mess. Anything you need …’ He waved the tankard vaguely across his chest and started to wander away. In the middle of the room he turned back. ‘If you want a mount I can always fix you up … collared about a dozen from the bloody Japs … some of them quite good. Give me a buzz.’ Then he had gone.

  He unbuckled his webbing belt, laid his revolver carefully on the table. They had all been armed at lunch in the Mess. Couldn’t be sure in this city.

  ‘There’s a pretty wide perimeter now.’ A fat Lieutenant stirring his coffee into a whirlpool. ‘Managed to shove ’em back to the river in the east, the railway in the south, and Rozendaal in the west; that’s a suburb but we hold it nearly all now with the Gurkhas: and of course,’ he rattled his spoon against the saucer, ‘we have the sea on the north so we’re pretty well protected really. But it is a bit of
a bugger; claustrophobic in a way … all stuck together, and the curfew is rather a bind. Can’t move anywhere outside the perimeter unless you are in convoy and the lights go out at twenty-two hundred. Difficult. Parties have to go on all night! Just doss down where you are.’ He grinned over his coffee cup. ‘Lots of pretty ladies about. Not everyone boycotts us. It’s not all durance vile, you know.’

  ‘Can you play it?’

  ‘No. I cook in it.’

  Where did she go to, he wondered, unbuttoning his bush jacket, slinging it onto his scattered boots. She wasn’t what you might call a pretty lady. Well. Yes. Pretty. You could give her that. Beautiful probably. Cold and beautiful. But rude, so damned rude. ‘I cook in it.’ Why that? Why not just, ‘Yes, I do.’ Or ‘I try to’ or ‘I’m the champion banjo player of the Java Bloody Seas.’ Even that. Only it’s a mandolin. M-A-N-D-O-L-I-N spells mandolin. Dismissive. Rude. In front of all those sniggering Chinese girls. He undid his slacks and let them concertina slowly down his legs as he hobbled across to the corner and the little white wash-bowl. And the big can of fresh water. Nothing in the taps of course because the terrorists had buggered up the hydroelectric thingummytites. Splashed water into the bowl, scooped some up in the bar-glass which he had taken from the Mess after dinner. Long after dinner. Singing. Slept from lunch till dinner almost. The sleep of the dead. Drunk. Dead drunk. In the ante-room he’d read some old magazines and two copies of The Daily Cobra. Half in Urdu or something for the Indian troops. Tatty little sheet. He squeezed paste on to his brush and dropped the tube back into his wash-bag. Rinsed his mouth slowly and spat it all out. Into the bowl of clean water. Clot. Emptied it and filled it up again, doused his face and head, rubbed them dry and neatly stepped out of his wrinkled slacks which he threw over the back of the crocodile.

  And-then-what-did-you-do-in-the-war, daddy? Well: someone came up and offered me a drink and that started it all up again. But I never saw the bloody old General. He’s got a house of his own somewhere. Doesn’t come to the Mess. Lives in comfort as befits a Ranker General. He pulled the plug and watched the water swirl away and then peered at his reflection in the spotted mirror behind his bar-glass and shaving brush. He smiled, scowled, grinned, stuck out his tongue. You are twenty-four, blond and beautiful, you ride a horse quite well, shoot not badly, and you interpreted bloody, bloody well … let’s face that, and now you are surplus and a replacement for some idiotic Company Commander, and no one wants you except to get your arse shot off in Pingpong or Bangbang or wherever the hell they said. And you are as pissed as a fart, my boyo. Pissed. He looked away, sadly shaking his head, and with his hands resting on his hips peed into the bowl. Nothing came out of the taps when he turned them. Only dust and rust. He sighed. If you are really miserable the only thing to do is to get absolutely stinking. And if you are frightened as well get doubly stinking. Nettles said, at some part of the evening, it was the best thing in the world for despair: a good skin-full. He’d been very kind. He’d understood how bloody it felt. So spruce and neat, ready for his dinner. Combed and showered, smelling of something rather sweet but quite pleasant. ‘Sandalwood,’ he had said. ‘Chinese in the market has a shop the size of Guerlain’s, full of delicious bottles and odours and oils. You know Guerlain’s in Paris?’ No. Black mark. ‘Marvellous shop. Used to spend ages there before the war. Good for morale to smell pleasant in this heat … don’t you think?’ Think? Yes, he thought so. And drink? Yes, he’d love another; I’m beginning to feel high and delirious now. The hell with Pingpong or Bifbat and cooking in a mandolin; what an absurd thing to say. Absurd. He suddenly ripped off his briefs and slung them with a wide dramatic gesture to follow the slacks. His arm stayed high in mid-flight, elegant, poised, a gesture of defiance, splendour, grace. The briefs arc’d across the room and fell over the crocodile’s clawed foot. He swivelled, arm still outstretched, on his heel in a half-circle until his graceful gesture struck the folds of his mosquito net. To bed! To bed! To sleep! Out, out you damned Pingpong. Who would have thought the young man to have had so much booze in him? Carefully, so as not to let the bugs creep in, he slid under his net onto the old familiar, faithful, camp bed from the Army & Navy Stores, Victoria. Was it only this morning? Christ. So much in so short a time. On his pillow, neatly folded, his blue-checked sarong. Too hot for sheets. So a sarong. Which you tucked thus, and thus, and thus. Exhausting. He lay back and stared up into the veils of net. Not quite so pissed suddenly. Not pleasant: mouth foul, but everything steady. Not happy. Not that. It’s all gone, the forgetting. The caring. The fright. No. The fright is still there. A fist in the throat. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish it had never happened that I had to come here. I want to go home. Anywhere. Not here. I wish I was drunk again and not going to be a replacement. Oh shit. Come on, you’re grown up now. A big boy. Maudlin only because of booze all day. He reached up and snapped off the tiny low wattage electric bulb someone had considerately fixed on the pole inside his net. Closed his eyes. Head swung a little. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’

  ‘Said your prayers?’ Nanny Jarvis, folding his dressing-gown.

  ‘Yes. Done them.’

  ‘What did you pray for tonight then?’

  ‘It’s unlucky to tell.’

  ‘Nonsense. Stuff and nonsense. Praying isn’t wishing, Ben.’

  ‘Well … I prayed for you.’

  ‘Thank you, I’m sure.’

  ‘And Father and Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Oh. To-make-me-a-good-boy-amen.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And a new saddle for Sweetbriar.’

  ‘Poor Jesus! You are greedy.’

  She had laughed and tugged his head kindly.

  Tug my head kindly now. What a lot of bunk. How idiotic. All that rubbish to get you through a life like this. The hell with Sweetbriar and his saddle and make-me-a-good-boy-amen. Who for? What for? What about a nice fast Dakota to get me out of this shitty mess? A nice slow Dakota would do. I’ll settle for that. Anything really. Funny, though, how things stick. Remembering. How you remember. A sort of habit. I’ll remember this sodding day until the day I die: which could be in an hour’s time, tomorrow, or about tea-time next Tuesday. Oh hell and high water. Don’t think of that in the dark. He turned slowly on his side and slept.

  A muffled sound of something slithering; a stifled voice. Silence. He was at once awake, eyes wide in the dark. The sound of breathing. Revolver. Christ! On the table. Stiff with fright, the darkness faded, slivers of moonlight slid through the shutters. A slow, weaving, black figure through the net. He moved upright, grabbed for the light switch, a weak halo of low wattage. A tall figure looming beyond the milky folds.

  ‘It’s all right. It’s me. Geoffrey.’

  ‘What the hell’s the matter, what do you want?’

  ‘Nothing the matter. Don’t speak so loudly, you’ll wake the house.’

  His heart still thudding, he raised the net. Nettles was rubbing his foot, standing on one leg like a crane, in a short black kimono.

  ‘Tripped over something, nearly broke my foot.’

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  ‘What did I trip over?’

  ‘God knows … the crocodile perhaps. There by the door …’

  ‘Bloody silly place to have it. A crocodile.’

  ‘What is it, Geoffrey? It’s two in the bloody morning.’

  ‘Thought you might be … lonely. That’s all. Strange room, strange house. You know.’

  ‘Well, I’m not. I was asleep, for God’s sake!’

  Nettles squatted gently beside the low bed. ‘I’ve been awake for some time. Thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me. What about me?’

  ‘So sad and depressed. Absolutely stinking at dinner, you know. About your posting.’

  ‘Oh that. Yes, I know I was. Still am really. But it’s all better now. Got over it. Really. Thanks all the same.’
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  Nettles was examining his foot carefully.

  ‘Stubbed my toe. You told Gaunt and me that you would sell your soul to the Devil to avoid going … really.’

  ‘Too many drinks. In vino …’

  ‘Ah yes … veritas … Well, I’ve come shopping.’

  ‘Don’t be dotty. I feel awful.’

  ‘You don’t have to go, you know. Worked it all out.’

  A rising scent of sandalwood. He placed his hand on Rooke’s knee. ‘No need at all to go down to the Brigade.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  The hand pressed gently. ‘Been thinking all night. Clever old me. Bright as a bee. I could fix it all.’ The hand slipped up the thigh, smoothing the cotton sarong. Rooke struck it hard and swiftly.

  ‘Bugger off. None of that.’

  ‘Hoity toity. But it’s an amazing thought …’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you mean.’

  ‘Course you do. All about it.’

  ‘About what? What’s wrong with you? What do I know all about?’

  ‘Oh come! Public School. Actor. My dear; come on now.’

  ‘You come on now and piss off.’

  ‘Is it gay? You asked in the jeep … is it really gay? I mean. Well.’

  ‘Well what? I was asking you. Fun, living, enjoyable, jolly …’

  ‘Gay is gay. You know quite well.’

  ‘I bloody don’t. Didn’t. Don’t. I know Pouf. Queer.’

  ‘Ten out of ten.’

  ‘Gather you’re both.’

  ‘Quick as a flash we are. So?’

  ‘So bugger off.’

  Nettles leant forward, his elbows on the bed-edge. ‘I prefer gay.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’m absolutely normal. Sorry.’