Stiff Upper Lip by Lawrence Durrell Page B

know how materialistic they are. It would mean the China Station again, and my liver wouldn’t stand it.”
    I took a deep breath. I began to see his point. A loincloth is a tricky thing in diplomacy; in the hands of the Ill-Disposed it could become a Secret Weapon. I pondered.
    â€œWell,” I said at last, “you will have to try and Carry It Off somehow. Pretend he’s a cousin of somebody important like Noel Coward or Bruce Lockhart. It’s the only chance.” But he was sunk in gloom and hardly heeded me. “And then there’s another thing,” he said gloomily. “I’m supposed to be living on goat’s milk—not unsweetened condensed touched up with Gordon’s Dry. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to keep a goat in the house. They smell so. I expect he’ll give me a dressing down on spiritual grounds when he finds out. And honestly, Antrobus, I don’t see myself passing him off as a relation, do you?” To be honest I didn’t really; but what was to be done? The plane had already left London with Butch’s little spiritual adviser aboard. We would have to face up to reality. I confess my heart ached for old Butch.
    But if he was pale now, my colleague, he was a great deal paler that afternoon as he got into the official car and set off for the airport to meet his swami. I didn’t blame him. The dew of death had settled on his somewhat receding brow. The poor chap could see himself socially dished as well spiritually pooped.
    Imagine his relief, however, when out of the aircraft stepped—not a naked Dravidian leading a quarantined goat—but the most poised and charming of Indian princelings, clad in beautifully cut clothes and wearing a turban with an emerald the size of a goitre in it. Anaconda Veranda was perfectly delightful, a Man Of The World, a Gentleman. Butch nearly fainted with relief as he listened to his perfect English, his exquisite English—rather better than Butch’s own brand of the stuff. Could this be the swami he so much dreaded? Butch swooned back in his car muttering prayers of thanksgiving. By the time he reached the Embassy with his swami he was a changed man. He was swollen with pride, gloating almost.
    I must say I found Veranda—everyone found him—perfectly delightful. It seems that he had been at Oxford with all of us—though strangely enough nobody remembered him. But he was as unbashfully Balliol as it is possible to be. And far from receiving the acid drop Butch found himself the most sought-after man in the Corps. All because of his swami. Veranda danced beautifully, was modest, wise, witty and gentle; he also played the flute to distraction which endeared him frightfully to Polk-Mowbray. He was even spiritually accommodating and let Butch know that in certain stages of spiritual development the odd touch of gin in unsweetened condensed is just the job and has the unofficial approval of the Dalai Lama. Butch was in ecstasies. So were we all.
    Veranda did quite a bit of drawing-room occultism, turning tables and telling fortunes until the Ladies of the Corps were almost mad with flattery and apprehension. He hypnotized Drage and took an endless succession of hard-boiled eggs out of his nose. He predicted Collin’s appointment to China. He told Dovebasket the size of his overdraft to two places of decimals. My dear chap, he was a Man of Parts. In next to no time he had most of the Ambassadresses pleading openly for spiritual instruction while the Heads Of Mission, mad with envy, were cabling their head office for swamis to be sent out on approval by air freight. Polk-Mowbray even conceived the idea of creating a special post of Senior Spiritual Adviser to the Embassy and appointing Veranda to it. Just to keep him with us. But I think the Chaplain intervened and quashed the idea. Polk-Mowbray sulked a good deal after this.
    Well, for a whole season Veranda occupied the social spotlight,