A Gentle Occupation Read online

  ‘There was a photographer once,’ she used to say. ‘I remember him. Very, very refined. Only in Courtrai for a night or two … dark, with a fine moustache, a handsome rogue, Jewish of course, he took photographs of us all. We dressed in our very best and made a pretty group in the yard with carpets and chairs and a big bowl of peonies. But he forgot to send them. We waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. So of course he was Jewish. It was not long after that when you started. Oh my God the panic! Hot baths, exercises, bicycling for miles, emetics, they nearly killed me. But not you; you hung on, you little devil. Maybe it was him, that photographer, same eyes. He had an eye for composition as well as for all the rest. I’d like to think it was, I never got the photograph, but I got you. I’m not dissatisfied, my little Foto.’

  And from then on, because she had reached a respectable age and position in her work, she was called Miss Foto. (The Miss being borrowed from Mistinguette as an added honour.) And as such, under that name, she had prospered exceedingly. In 1921, just as Miss Foto reached the age of consent, without which she had done remarkably well for a number of years, La Belle suffered a grave stroke upon leaving her bed one afternoon and aware that, as she put it, the sand was running out of her Time, she told her daughter exactly where her fortune had been hidden all these years (and for which her daughter had tirelessly searched ever since she was old enough to climb a ladder or lift a floor board), demanded an elegant funeral with ‘feathers to all the horses’, insisted that Courtrai was far too small a town for a girl of such rapidly developing talents and that, as soon as the To-Do had all been done, she was to take her fortune to ‘Uncle’ Albrecht in Brussels who had always promised that he would be more than delighted to assist a sorrowing girl through the tribulations and despairs of her mourning period. Having delivered herself of this list of instructions, La Belle folded her one good arm across her still-plump breast, and closed her eyes.

  ‘Ah Mamma! Don’t speak so. You’ll soon be well. This is nothing.’

  ‘This is everything. I sense it. I know.’

  ‘No, no! It can’t be true, it isn’t so.’

  ‘If I didn’t know it was so,’ said La Belle pointedly, ‘do you think I’d have told you where I hid my money?’

  ‘You’ll be well again. You see. And then we’ll go on a holiday. Deauville or Le Touquet.’

  ‘I’ll not get well; and the only holiday I’ll get is in Heaven, God willing.’

  Miss Foto’s tears were nearly real. After all she had known her mother for a considerable time, and intimately. She also admired her. ‘Don’t speak so, Mamma. Don’t leave me. What do I care for your fortune?’

  ‘A very great deal!’ snapped La Belle and died comfortably, in her sleep, as she had intended, later that evening.

  The funeral was a modest affair. No plumed horses, and a plain, pine coffin. As Miss Foto knew only too well, dead was dead and that was that.

  She was delighted with her fortune; La Belle had been very successful at her job, popular, prudent, expert, and, above all, diligent. She had also been thrifty. So armed with a not inconsiderable sum, a portfolio of sketches and designs, a becoming black cloche hat, monkey-fur coat and a pair of snake-skin shoes which she had long coveted and could now afford, Miss Foto set off for Brussels and the hirsute, if attentive, ‘Uncle’ Albrecht with La Belle’s often quoted admonition ringing in her ears. ‘Always go to the top, up and up: but remember! Never look down, for fear you become giddy and fall.’

  Miss Foto obeyed this stricture to the letter, and on her rise, which was that of a rocket, she never once felt the least flicker of vertigo.

  ‘Uncle’ Albrecht owned a modest, but important, chain of provincial journals and very soon her elegant, imaginative little designs and ideas were appearing regularly and Miss Foto became so well-established, so hard-working and so determined, that a bemused ‘Uncle’ found himself purchasing a small dress-shop in a select quarter of the city, and Miss Foto was launched as a dressmaker and hat designer under the name of ‘Dora Foto: Modes’. The Dora deriving from ‘Uncle’ Albrecht’s name for her, a diminution of his word Adorable.

  At about the same time that King Albert fell to his death from a rock in the Ardennes, clearly proving La Belle’s advice to be correct, ‘Uncle’ Albrecht, worried by the state of affairs generally, the assassination of the King of Yugoslavia, Stavisky’s suicide and an undercurrent of general European distress, jumped out of a sixth floor window in the Palace Hotel, leaving his affairs in disarray and Miss Foto minus her shop, for he had imprudently bought it in his own name and not hers. All this falling made her very unsettled, and shortly after Hitler conclusively came to power, she decided it might be a wise move to take what she had and put as much space as possible between herself and the shadows which were lengthening across Europe. To this end she packed up, took a train to Amsterdam, and from there she sailed, with three cabin trunks and a good deal of very useful experience one way and another, to Java. Enchanted by the islands, by the comparative ease with which she found herself accepted, with the great opportunities for a girl who was so cosmopolitan in a rather backward European social society, she made her way to the Island (after a good look around from Bali to Borneo) and settled down to a comfortable existence in yet another little dress shop with a busy salon on the side, in a select neighbourhood, just off Nassau Boulevard, where she catered for the wives of the local diplomats, military, and naval personnel. And, after ten in the evenings, very discreetly, for their husbands. She had the prettiest hats and girls in town. And she had prospered very comfortably until the Japanese made their rather sudden, unexpected entry during the Saturday Night Dance at the Planters Club. But even then, by dint of sheer cunning, determination, and sense, she had managed to make her way; and although hats and ball gowns and sharkskin suits for the Sunday Cocktail Parties had had to go, the salon had, in greatest secrecy, managed to survive. For the Invaders themselves.

  With more than a thousand women caged up in the Camp, deprived for a long time of male companionship and comfort, so essential to a woman’s morale and well-being, it seemed a wanton waste of her organizing powers, her experience, and her small, but almost isolated, ground floor quarters which bordered, conveniently, the very edge of the perimeter wire. Everything was done with the utmost taste. Never a light allowed. Colonel Nakamura, the Commandant, was a perfect gentleman who spoke excellent French having studied at the Sorbonne, who realized the deep-seated need of his women ‘guests’ and also those of a number of his more intellectual younger officers. He also recognized his own. The ladies, when they arrived, arrived discreetly by the front door in the dark street of the camp, the gentlemen, quietly by the neat opening in the wire at the back. It was a perfect, well-organized, nearly elegant arrangement. And the ladies were always only too happy to show their gratitude for such an arrangement by leaving a little gift in Miss Foto’s keeping. A lipstick, a powder compact, a ring perhaps, sometimes a little jewel, stockings or even, now and then and as the years drifted on, a treasured length of cloth, a dress, or a pure gold fountain pen; just little bits and pieces really. For they had not been able to bring very much with them to the camp in only one suitcase. But by the time the British eventually arrived and brought everything back to near-normal, she was happy to see that her thoughtfulness, compassion and business acumen had helped her to accumulate enough assorted goods to open a small shop. Quite rightly, the ladies were only too delighted, once freed, to buy back their belongings. For very modest sums. There had been a few minor embarrassments, naturally, but she had managed to deal with those. No one, she felt sure, would want to dwell on the past; the present and the future were what mattered now.

  She placed her empty cup on the tray, and reached out a hand to her ‘security’.

  ‘Another cup?’

  He shook his head, ‘No, my dear. Much as I’d like to spend the whole afternoon just sitting here looking at you but,’ he looked at his watch, ‘duty calls. There should be some news about that blasted convoy we sent out this morning from Rozendaal. Nettles said he’d probably have some information about now; he and the others are coming in after five.’ He grinned slyly, ‘Know not to disturb me, unless it’s a big disaster, before that—otherwise engaged. My weekly rest, eh? With my Dora doll. You haven’t had a sandwich.’ He took one and stuffed it into his mouth. Miss Foto brushed her pleats, collected her little pochette, and got up. The movement took him by surprise. ‘Where are you off to, my love?’ His words were indistinct, coming as they did through a mixture of crumbs and Marmite. ‘Don’t go. Anything we have to talk about we could talk about in front of you, you know. Only military stuff, not secret.’

  ‘No. I’ll go home. Leave the gentlemen together.’

  ‘As you like. Boring, I suppose.’

  ‘Not so. But I wash my hair, and tell the cook about supper. You will come?’

  ‘Of course. About nine-ish …’

  ‘A little duck she got in the market. Curried, shall we?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  She bent and kissed his bald spot, he patted her bottom affectionately.

  ‘Prettiest in the world. I’m a lucky boy.’

  ‘You be good now. Nine o’clock.’

  He sat watching her cross the verandah, down the steps, and across the brown grass of what had been a garden, to the hedge of bamboo and the little gate which led to her modest bungalow. Nice to have her right next door, and Tim on the other side. Everyone on hand, but discreetly apart. She had arranged all that perfectly: as well as being a perfect mistress she was also a bloody good billeting-officer. Settled them all in, knew every house in the area. Don’t know what we’d have done without her. He rang the silver bell for Nanni Singh and stuffed another sandwich into his mouth, cupping his hand to catch the crumbs.

  ‘Nettles Sahib and Roberts Sahib are coming in. You have beer?’

  Nanni Singh collected his tray and nodded silently.

  ‘And some of that American stuff in tins. Tomato, got that?’

  ‘All ready, General Sahib.’ He looked about the verandah as if he’d lost something. ‘The mem-sahib has gone?’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  Nanni grunted, ‘Only beer glasses then.’

  ‘Only beer glasses. Plenty of beer.’

  ‘As I said.’ He moved silently across the verandah towards his kitchen.

  Tim Roberts had tight black hair, neatly parted in the centre, and a small black moustache which looked like a smudge beneath his nose and, thought the general, made him look like Hitler, or a grocer, anyway common: however, he was a good ADC and he’d miss him; and he could talk to him, didn’t feel uncomfortable with him as he did with Nettles who sometimes made him feel a bit uneasy, although God knew Nettles was damned efficient too … it was just the feeling that he was smiling at some private thought all the time. Never quite came clean with things, superior, reserved, a bit of a bloody snob … too well-educated and knew it. A bit too dapper. Dora sensed it, he could tell that. She always slipped away if Nettles was coming in. Woman’s intuition. If Nanni Singh fussed her, what would Nettles do? Give her a seizure. Ah well … He poured himself another beer and sat down behind his desk.

  ‘And they reached them at Kampong 10?’

  Roberts folded his map and stuffed it into its case. ‘That’s it, Sir. Just in time … poor old Bob Holly copped it in the head, six others with grenade splinters, nothing much, and two of the trucks on fire. But the extremists had buggered off.’

  ‘With sixty women and children,’ said Brigadier ‘Bunny’ Blackett. ‘God knows where to. Hostages hopefully: otherwise it’ll be the same thing as the Dakota business. Hack ’em to bits.’

  ‘But the survivors are all safely in, eh?’ Cutts sipped his beer.

  ‘All in reception, two hundred and thirty out of the three hundred. It really can’t go on like this much longer, Sir. We simply have to have air-support … can’t deal with things otherwise, they just melt into the forests … got all the transport they need, all the ammo, damned well organized, and quite fanatical. Fanatical, screaming and yelling: what we need is the RAF to search out and destroy.’

  ‘I know what we need, Bunny,’ Cutts snapped. ‘I’ve told Singapore, as you know. We’ll just have to wait for Mountbatten, set it all before him. Facts, figures, casualties and so on. I know, as well as you do, that we’re fighting a war with our hands tied; it’s the same in Java, all over the islands … bloody bad luck for everyone concerned, but we’ll just have to struggle on as best we can. I can’t get another brigade up to Pangpang or a bloody Squadron from the RAF in ten minutes! They don’t know what the situation here really is at SEAC.’

  Blackett shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Well, Sir, the sooner they do the fewer lives we’ll lose. Of course we’ll all do the best we can, but the men are getting pretty demoralized; a hundred casualties since we landed … not including Dutch civilians or Allied prisoners …’

  ‘Look here, Bunny.’ Cutts leaned forward, clasped his hands together firmly, narrowed his eyes, and straightened his back. Usually an imposing posture, he felt. ‘I’ve requested a squadron, requested more field guns … made it quite clear we can’t handle it alone. What’s the result? Mountbatten’s coming out to have a shufti. See for himself, can’t do more than that, can I? The Supremo himself on a fact-finding mission? If he can’t fix things we can’t. Of course three brigades on an island two hundred bloody miles long isn’t enough; but who expected a bloody civil war, eh? Who did?’

  His patent anger left a singing silence in the shadowed room. Nettles took out his cigarette case, received permission to smoke, and blew a series of little rings into the still air. The Brigadier poured himself another drink.

  General Cutts relaxed, finished his beer, and carefully placed his glass on the desk. ‘All get a bit rattled: no one’s fault. We do the best we can. Bloody bad luck.’

  Tim Roberts got up from his chair and wandered across to the verandah: it was starting to get dark, a flock of parrots wheeled over the garden and scattered quarrelling into the trees. The General watched him for a few seconds; making circles on the desk with the base of his beer glass.

  ‘You’re off when, Tim? Next month?’

  ‘Fifteen days and ten hours time,’ Roberts turned back, grinning.

  ‘Just my bloody luck. Supremo arrives shortly, and some blasted Labour VIP. What do I do for an ADC? Indent for one? Ask ’em to bring one with them from SEAC?’

  Roberts took up his cane and swished it through the air like a golfing iron. ‘Been rather getting young Hall ready, Sir. He’s a good chap, bright. I’ve been keeping him in the picture for a couple of months; I think he’d make it all right. Keen, presentable … you recommended him for mention.’

  The General waved his hand across the cluttered desk. ‘I may have recommended him for the MD but not for a bloody ADC … too namby-pamby—and stop wagging that bloody cane about, you’re not at Gleneagles yet. I’m buggered if I want to start breaking in a new ADC. Got enough to do.’

  Nettles leant forward in his chair and stubbed out his cigarette very precisely. ‘It so happens,’ he said deliberately, still stubbing the cigarette, ‘it so happens that one ready-made ADC arrived in yesterday from Calcutta. He’s up in “A” Mess. There’s a thing!’

  ‘Don’t follow.’

  ‘New arrival. Rooke. ADC to General Wade. The lie slid easily from his tongue. He watched Cutts carefully. Saw the flick of doubt. ‘Very presentable, Wilmington, excellent Suffolk family, very keen.’

  ‘Never heard of Wade. Wade, did you say?’

  ‘North Grampians, I think.’

  ‘No one I know. ADC was he?’

  ‘Yes. Then he was asked for by Montgomery for 2nd Army Staff.’

  ‘As ADC?’

  ‘No, no. Trained as photographic interpreter. Very bright.’

  Cutts rubbed his forehead slowly. ‘Seems a bit of a muddle. Monty just removed him from this Wake, Wade, whatsisname?’

  ‘Just that. Apparently. Wade was livid.’

  ‘So I should bloody well think. Bloody high-handed! That’s Monty if you like. Eh, Bunny? All gone to his head. Well … keep him around for a bit. Might be useful. Tim, we’ll have a little party for you, how about that; farewell fling. Been a long time, eh? And a little party would do us all good. Get some girls along—somehow—a bit of beer, some dancing, we could all do with a bit of entertainment. What do you say, Nettles? Good idea?’

  Nettles was smiling gently. ‘Splendid idea, Sir; when and where?’

  The General shuffled his papers together, stacked them tidily, placed the brass frog on top. ‘You do all that. Leave it to you. Things are pretty quiet down here now. Shouldn’t have much trouble now we’re all deployed. ‘Course if anything does blow up we’ll have to can it … but get cracking, eh? Tim: stop whacking about with that bloody stick. Can’t think …’

  ‘Sorry, Sir. Sudden rush of excitement. A party. It’s very kind of you, Sir.’

  Cutts rose majestically from his desk, pulling down his jacket, pulling in his paunch. ‘I am kind.’ He smiled.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Roberts looked at him with wry affection.

  ‘Been together what, two years, two and a half?’

  ‘Just two, Sir.’

  ‘Long time. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Nettles let the tender little silence last a moment before he broke it, rising to his feet and reaching for his cap. He was smiling himself. It could have been mistaken for sympathy.