A Gentle Occupation Page 7

  She stared up into the dim folds of the sagging net which hung like a still vapour in the faint moon filtering through the shutters. No, it didn’t help. Meaning well was something which the English seemed to think was a fault rather than a virtue. Pullen had said it was the saddest epitaph a man could have on his gravestone. A world of Bethell-Woods. Perhaps it was … a world of Bethell-Woods and Dora Fotos … two women with only one single link in common apart from their sex. Meaning well. Unaware of the destruction. It had been Mrs Bethell-Wood who, whispering snippets of news which she had gleaned from the secret radio (which Clair had hidden in a tin of paint) too liberally and without caution, had found herself betrayed and in consequence betrayed Clair who had refused to speak, so that Wim would bear the hideous scar on his arm for the rest of his life. It was Dora Foto who had hidden her four Australians, Mel, Dickie, Ron and Joe, in the foolish hope of getting them away by fishing boat one dark night and who, when her own unexpected internment faced her, had had to surrender them.

  ‘They’ll be all right. They are Servicemen. Soldiers. They’ll send them to a camp. The League of Nations says so.’ They beheaded them on the football pitch in the stadium at Rozendaal. No epitaphs for Bethell-Wood or Mel, Dickie, Ron or Joe. And Dora Foto was not, as somebody had once said, the dying kind. She’d bedevil Death if he should come towards her; she’d cheat, cajole and charm him, in her accustomed manner, to delay, postpone and finally evade him. Dora was the ultimate survivor. But when all was said and done she too had meant well. It is something, Emmie thought wryly, that I must avoid during my work with the Army. She stretched up and curled her hands around the coolness of the brass rail above her. I wish I could sleep, I wish I could. My head spins with too much talk, too much thinking, too much joy. I cannot sleep happiness away, there hasn’t been so much of it that I can afford to simply accept it. I must cherish it and make it last. She left her bed and unbolted the shutters again.

  The ragged garden was washed in light. A bat swung across the valley and was lost against the knuckle-fisted mountains hard and black against an immensity of stars. She could see the hands of her cheap tin watch; it was well after two. Another day had started. She scooped up her hair into a rough bundle and held it on the top of her head, turning her naked body into the cool, still air, bathing in the night.

  ‘No. I cook in it,’ she said aloud, and laughed.

  Three villas away up the deserted street Major Nettles lightly shrugged himself out of his kimono.

  Chapter Three

  Hands behind his head, wide-legged on the rumpled bed, he watched her cross the room drying her hair vigorously with his khaki towel. Full breasts bouncing with the effort. A neat waist, plump thighs dimpling as she braced herself. He felt a swift surge of pleasure.

  ‘You know, Dora, you’ve got the prettiest bum I’ve ever seen.’

  She shook her hair, fluffed it out, threw the damp towel on to his belly. It’s a paunch: looks like a little hat, she thought. She combed her fringe roughly with her fingers.

  ‘Flanders mare,’ she said.

  ‘Nonsense. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘I’m Belgian. That’s why. That’s what they call me. I know.’

  ‘Jealousy.’

  ‘Maybe. Everyone is jealous of something here. I’ve left enough water for you.’

  ‘I’m jealous too. Of you.’

  ‘Ach … needn’t be.’ She blew a light kiss and padded over to a chair rummaging in her clothes. ‘I know when I’m well off, Leo, a loyal woman; you’ll see.’

  He watched her pull a stocking over an arched foot, smooth it up her shin, round her calf. ‘That makes me very excited, you know.’

  ‘What does? Putting these on?’

  ‘Yes. Terrific. Shiny, slinky, smooth …’

  ‘You’ve had quite enough.’

  ‘I could go again.’

  ‘Disgusting. You’re a naughty boy.’ She snapped a garter round her plump thigh and started on the other stocking humming under her breath, ignoring the implied suggestion; dismissing him. He heaved himself off the bed, took the towel and waved it at her.

  ‘Look! Not bad for fifty-seven, eh?’

  She looked at him critically under her fringe. ‘Naughty boy. Go and put cold water on it.’

  ‘You’d get a stand out of a monk. You’re a tease.’ He tramped into the bathroom, poured water into the basin, started to wash. You see; Peggy wouldn’t have said that. Naughty boy. She’d call me Old boy … Old boy. Not naughty. A world of difference. Difference all right, Christ! Where was she now? Banging about in her ruddy little flat in Moscow Mansions, Cromwell Road, that’s where. Stuffing her bloody old mother with bread and milk and bossing the backside off poor old Daphne. Then committee meetings, badminton, Red Cross, ARP, making sure the Land Girls weren’t getting screwed. Fat hopes. But she’d interfere anywhere she wasn’t wanted. Bigot. Prude. Duff marriage, that was. Duff. Right from the start. First night in Darjeeling I knew we were sunk. ‘Do it outside. I don’t want it inside me.’ What a bloody awful beginning for a lifetime of until-death-do-us-part. Died that night.

  ‘You’re my wife, Peggy.’ He could hear the sobs now.

  ‘If you want that sort of thing you should have got a girl from Whiteway and Laidlaws … a tart.’

  He had almost laughed in her face, but she’d never have seen the joke. Buying your conjugal rights from a Calcutta department store. And that’s how it had been from April the third, nineteen bloody twenty-one. Otherwise, of course, a perfect wife. To the Regiment. Good at tennis, played bridge like a pro, chose the staff, ran the bungalows impeccably, good with the other wives, tough, firm, no nonsense there, arranged the choirs, the picnics, the Bible Class, sewing bees, the jumble sales, God! Those jumble sales … A pillar of the Church, like her father, bossing the junior officers; only she called it Mothering. Christ almighty! Mothering! The last thing she’d ever know about. The only thing she knew all about was Class. ‘Not quite our class, I’m afraid, but pleasant.’ or ‘Of course she married out of her class; as I did. Mistake, I always think. Leads to endless distress.’ And that said in front of her sodding Sewing Bee. Loud as that, and me present: as if I were cellophane.

  ‘You deceived me, from the first day we met at the DC’s party.’

  ‘Peg, I didn’t, I swear.’

  ‘I never knew your father was a Quartermaster Sergeant: you never said.’

  ‘Didn’t think it was important.’

  ‘It was. Others knew. There were hints, raised eyebrows … I ignored them.’

  ‘Good thing too.’

  ‘Not as it turned out.’

  ‘We manage.’

  ‘I was too trusting. Where I came from gentlemen didn’t lie.’

  ‘I didn’t lie!’

  ‘Evaded. Avoided, whatever word you like.’

  ‘And where the hell did you come from, I’d like to know? Bangor and a bloody Welsh parson with a bit of private money.’

  ‘My dowry. And don’t swear at me. At least he could read …’

  ‘And so did my bloody father, he read too.’

  ‘Figures.’

  He nearly struck her, but she smiled blandly knowing he wouldn’t dare.

  However, she’d pushed him, he had to give her that; for her own sake, not his. Saw to his promotions, entertained enough, organized everyone around her.

  He dropped the soap and had to chase it skittering across the tiles.

  Organized herself too, knew when to lose a rubber at bridge, and to whom. And for what good reason. ‘I know you’ll mention it to Archie, Prudence. He can’t possibly overlook Leo, I know, but a little word from you, you know, makes such a difference.’ That barking laugh, the score cards crumpled quietly, the cheque written and pushed calmly towards the wretched Prudence who gently helped push him in her turn, towards his Majority. Oh, she was crafty at that sort of thing, cunning. Very Welsh. Shameless, she knew what she was after. They were all terrified of her, of course. She was beyond reproach naturally, knew who hit the secret bottle, who went wandering after the tennis matches, the picnics; and with whom. Bribed a whole fleet of loyal servants. Her Fifth Column, he called it, which sent her into white rage and twice to church on Sunday.

  When he finally got his Division in ’42 she suddenly decided that she had quite fulfilled any vows she might have made at the wedding and announced that she was off ‘home’ where she was really needed. ‘You don’t need me now: you’ve got a war to fight, old boy. That’ll keep you busy and I’m not sitting about in this loathsome country rolling bandages and nursing the wounded. I’m going “home” now; about time. Daphne is at her wits’ end with Edward dead, Mother’s nearly eighty and almost blind, and I hate India and the Indians … always did, always will. Mean, spiteful, deceitful and sly. Don’t try and stop me, Leo—as if you even would—my mind is quite made up. Booked a passage, compassionate grounds, pulled rank. Bombay on the tenth.’

  He hadn’t made a fuss. Didn’t care much anyway. He didn’t need her now, she was right … he’d done his best, he felt. Let her clear off. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Nanni Singh would look after him; best bloody bearer in the Army.

  ‘Do as you like, Peg. It’s your life.’

  ‘Now it is. It’s been yours ever since we married; all for you. Now it’s my turn for a change. Taken long enough, old boy. I’m off.’

  ‘Very well, Peg.’

  ‘Don’t call me Peg. My name’s Peggy.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned it’s Peg. Bloody wooden peg. Driven into the ground with a sledge-hammer, a sodding tent peg you are!’

  She had smiled suddenly, looked almost gentle, hands folded calmly in flannelled lap, feet crossed neatly at the ankles, sharp nose held high, head to one side, a kind of bird, eyes bright, cold; killing the smile.

  ‘That’s it. Quite right. Driven into the ground. You know what tent pegs do, old boy, don’t you? No need to tell you, I’m sure. Take up the slack. Hold things together. Didn’t know you ever understood. Too late now. Bombay on the tenth.’

  He dried himself briskly. Slack. Not he. One thing she was wrong about. Nothing slack about me, never has been. I’ve made it, all along the line from Quetta to Major bloody General. He picked up his ivory comb and ran it through thin reddish hair. I’ve done bloody well for Sergeant Cutts. A mention, and MC, now Governor of this ruddy Island, that’s not to be sneezed at, for God’s sake! Slack! Christ! I can still get it up twice in an afternoon … she’d have a fit if she knew that. But that’s something she never found out once.

  In the bedroom Miss Foto had finished dressing when he came back, fixing a neat velvet bandeau round her head, smoothing her fringe carefully under it.

  She smiled a vague smile. ‘What a time you have been.’

  He pulled on his underpants. ‘Big boy. Lots of me to wash.’

  She flicked him a look: tall enough; paunch, sagging under-drawers, thinning red hair, slack breasts over a sparse mottled mat. Searching for his vest.

  ‘I hate afternoon sex.’ She turned towards the long mirror in the wardrobe, twisted about checking the seams of her stockings. ‘I feel awful. Not tidy.’

  His voice was muffled in the cellular vest. ‘Only time, my dear. When else? Sunday’s a day of rest, even here.’

  ‘I feel like a whore. All the light.’

  ‘Bugs and bombs at night, you know. Go down to the lounge. Nanni’ll be bringing in the tea, a good cup of tea will make you feel better.’

  She picked up her leather pochette. Why did the English always think that a cup of tea was the panacea for everything? Tea. She’d rather have a Bols. A beer even. She poked about, found a lipstick, pursed her lips into a false kiss, widened them into a dead grin, spread them thickly with two even strokes top and bottom. Scarlet.

  ‘I don’t like him. This Indian.’

  ‘Good gracious me! Nanni? Marvellous fellow. Twenty-six loyal years.’

  ‘He spies, I know he does.’

  ‘Stuff! He just keeps an eye open. Anything you want. Very discreet.’

  ‘He has a boy.’

  He went red and unrolled his socks from a lumpy ball. ‘Oh come now, Dora doll …’

  ‘I’ve seen him, you know. A youth. Always in the kitchen.’

  ‘Well, that’s his affair. He’s a grandfather three times over. Can’t get a girl here, so …’ He shrugged uneasily. ‘Has to have a bit of fun, no harm.’

  ‘Unless he talks too much. They’ll spread it round the bazaar like a plague.’

  ‘Nonsense. He never speaks; not that sort of fellow. I know.’ He pulled on his shirt, buttoned the cuffs.

  ‘I hope you’re right. It’s disgusting, I think.’ She screwed the lipstick into its case.

  ‘There’s a song; you heard it, Dora?

  “There’s a boy across the river

  With a bottom like a peach.

  But alas I have no boat.”’

  She didn’t look at him. Slid the lipstick into her pochette and snapped it shut. Firmly. ‘You British …’

  ‘Indian actually. Old marching song.’

  She went to the door, the pleats in her skirt swinging.

  ‘You’ve got a bottom like a peach, Dora doll.’

  She was on the landing and didn’t hear him. Or chose not to. He smiled, rubbed his nose, looked for his trousers.

  On the verandah tea had been laid already. Two cups, two plates, a lime sliced under a little net cage. Sunlight flickering through leaves. She wandered into the cool of the lounge, as he called it, dim with shuttered light. On his desk by the far window a neat pile of papers. Memos, Notes, Daily Orders, Information. She lifted the brass frog which held them down against a sudden breeze. Two replacement officers, Saturday, LST 3904.08.00 hrs. Convoy from Rozendaal, Major Caplan commanding depart Sunday 06.30 hrs. Nothing she didn’t know already. Mountbatten: scrawled beside another name with a question mark. She looked up suddenly and saw Nanni Singh watching her motionless at the kitchen door. He held a tray, behind him a slim youth with a plate of sandwiches. When she had replaced the papers and the brass frog he moved, and crossed on silent feet to the verandah. The boy passing her, grinned in complicity. She felt suddenly irritated and taking up the papers again she crossed to the staircase and called up loudly. For Nanni Singh.

  ‘Leo? When does this Mountbatten get in?’

  He called something down, but the door was shut; she watched Singh carefully as he came back with the empty tray. He didn’t look at her, but went over to the desk, straightened the brass frog neatly, and gesturing for the boy to go first, entered the kitchen and silently closed the door.

  Game, set and match. She thought. To me. But I know him: he’ll wait patiently before he strikes. I know the kind. Worked with them often enough, God knows. She replaced the papers under the frog and went out onto the verandah.

  ‘You be mother.’ He was spruce, shining, crisply starched into his fresh green uniform. A smell of talcum powder. He didn’t look so bad dressed, blue eyes sparkling; the thinning red hair, now dry, seemed less meagre. And he was tall. That was always useful for an ageing man. He patted her silk knee, grinning inanely, as he sat before her. ‘I like afternoon sex. Sets me up wonderfully. Like the tea afterwards as well. Very jolly. Bucks me up no end. You know, Dora doll, you really are a bloody good lay. Know how to please a chap, what? I feel in splendid form.’

  She poured the tea steadily through a silver strainer, added a ring of lime, one lump of sugar, handed him the cup. ‘You know, Leo, you speak very familiar to me.’

  He laughed cheerfully, crossing his legs carefully so as not to crease the slacks. ‘Speak the truth, my dear: haven’t been able to say that for years and years, no idea what a pleasure it is for me, supposed to be a compliment to you.’

  She stirred her tea, one finger neatly crooked. ‘I accept it then. As a compliment. But I don’t find the words attractive. Do you know what I mean? Never mind, you are a good boy, I think. Yes, a good boy.’

  ‘Oh Dora doll, my little tease. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  And you’d better not, my dear, she thought, because I’m not leaving for a time. I stay on. No matter what. But you’d better have a smile from me, to assure you of my good intentions. She did, over the teacup, and added a wink, which threw him into transports of boyish glee, and joined him in whatever game he thought he was playing: by himself. You, my dear Major General Cutts, are this girl’s life for the time being. My bread and butter, my roof, my security. With your help I’ll get away from this bloody place and move on. Ten years is a long, long time, and I have outstayed the welcome. But when all is said and done, she reasoned, you’ve had a good run for your money.

  Her mother, who had been known as the Belle of Courtrai, at least as far as the Hotel Terminus was concerned, had always insisted that you should get the most out of your investments, whatever they were. She herself had been a bad investment which La Belle had turned into gilt-edged stock. Born of an unknown father, she had determinedly resisted every effort made to prevent her entry into the world and had opened her eyes defiantly almost before her lungs had forced out her first triumphant cry. Resignedly La Belle held her, cradled against a full breast, bewildered, somewhat irritated, but aware of a deep-rooted sense of contentment. And La Petite Folie, as she became known, proved to be a good, peaceful, pleasing child who grew into a shrewd, tough, amusing, good-natured girl, delighting her many ‘uncles’, singing indelicate songs charmingly in the bar, and finally, when the time came for which she had been well coached, taking over La Belle’s varied batons from her wearying hands and placing them neatly, and deliciously, just exactly where they belonged. She also developed a particular gift for making dresses, and more importantly, for drawing them herself, in coloured crayons and simple, effective lines, so that her clientele, now extended to her own sex, arrayed in her original designs, culled from the fashion papers of Paris and Brussels, found their own profits much enhanced in the provincial towns of the area. La Belle was mystified by this fortuitous talent in her child, and wondered, constantly, where she could have inherited it, for she herself could do no more than make out a menu or a bill, in both of which she excelled. But to draw! To be able to suggest lace, satin, bows, buttons and taffeta ruches, that was a miracle.