You’re a grown man, or I once thought you were. Do you imagine the life we’ve been leading since 1939 makes any sense to me? Or to anyone except those bloody fools in fancy dress out there, risking their lives every day for a gesture? They’re phonies! The biggest phonies I’ve ever met, pretending they’re making the most tremendous sacrifices when real sacrifices are being made by overworked little clerks doing a day’s chores on a rasher of bloody spam and a tin of pilchards. Christ, you make me vomit, the whole damned lot of you, with your squadron scoreboards, and all that mumbo-jumbo you use to convince one another you’re a race apart. Talk about the Germans seeing themselves at Herrenvolk! You people are a damned sight worse than the Nazis. You’re steeped in self-deception without even knowing it. I could understand it in kids about nineteen, with the cradle marks still on their backsides, but you and Andy, and all those other married men in that mess over there, you’re old enough to recognise it for what it is, for something people will feed to red-nosed comedians at the end of the pier after the war. If you don’t understand this at your age you never will, so to hell with it all! I’ll give you five minutes to get your clothes on and go over to that camp with these letters. If you don’t then I’m going, and if you want to get in touch with me you can do it through my solicitors.’
He was appalled at her vehemence and protested, ‘But good God, old girl, we can’t just break up like that …’ but she cut him short with a sweep of her arm that came close to overturning the bedside light.
‘We can and damned well will,’ she said. ‘I packed a case thinking you would get a forty-eight hour pass to fix things up but if I go out of here alone I go for good, understand?’
He did not look foolish now so much as drunk and drained of the power of decision. He sat looking across at her as she dragged her night case and vanity case out of the wardrobe, flung them on the bed and then shrugged herself into her leopardskin coat. Overhead more aircraft zoomed towards the runway and downstairs a tinny gong was beaten for the evening meal. To Monica the sounds were the knell of their past and future. She said, cramming on her hat, ‘Well? You still think I’m bluffing?’
‘I don’t know what the hell to think unless you’re tight,’ he answered. ‘You’ve been talking cock ever since you came in, flapping those damn silly papers under my nose. Dammit, I’ve never thought of myself as having much upstairs, but I’ve got far more than to do what you’re asking me to do! Now for God’s sake let’s both have a drink and …’
He stopped because she had walked out and he sprang in pursuit, not realising he was naked until he reached the stairhead and saw her walk into the circle of light thrown on the first landing by the miserable 25-watt bulb. Then, feeling more deflated than he had ever felt in his life, he rushed back to the bedroom and pulled on his trousers and greatcoat, but on recrossing the threshold he stopped, recollecting that there was no main line train to York until half-past-seven and that he would have plenty of time to dress and pursue her to the station. He rang down for a large whisky that was brought up by the hotel’s sole waiter, a man who moved as if he had served drinks to officers home from the Crimea. Stevie called him ‘George’. He called all waiters George and had done, long before the R.A.F. made so free with the name.
‘When you go down hold the taxi, George,’ he said, ‘I want it to take me to the station,’ but George said, in the deferential voice he had used to address young hunting bucks who met at the pub before the airfield was built, ‘Madam took it, sir, and it can’t make the return journey to York in less than an hour. Would you like me to find out if Mr Armitage’s hack is free?’
‘No, scrub it,’ Stevie said, and finished his
He was appalled at her vehemence and protested, ‘But good God, old girl, we can’t just break up like that …’ but she cut him short with a sweep of her arm that came close to overturning the bedside light.
‘We can and damned well will,’ she said. ‘I packed a case thinking you would get a forty-eight hour pass to fix things up but if I go out of here alone I go for good, understand?’
He did not look foolish now so much as drunk and drained of the power of decision. He sat looking across at her as she dragged her night case and vanity case out of the wardrobe, flung them on the bed and then shrugged herself into her leopardskin coat. Overhead more aircraft zoomed towards the runway and downstairs a tinny gong was beaten for the evening meal. To Monica the sounds were the knell of their past and future. She said, cramming on her hat, ‘Well? You still think I’m bluffing?’
‘I don’t know what the hell to think unless you’re tight,’ he answered. ‘You’ve been talking cock ever since you came in, flapping those damn silly papers under my nose. Dammit, I’ve never thought of myself as having much upstairs, but I’ve got far more than to do what you’re asking me to do! Now for God’s sake let’s both have a drink and …’
He stopped because she had walked out and he sprang in pursuit, not realising he was naked until he reached the stairhead and saw her walk into the circle of light thrown on the first landing by the miserable 25-watt bulb. Then, feeling more deflated than he had ever felt in his life, he rushed back to the bedroom and pulled on his trousers and greatcoat, but on recrossing the threshold he stopped, recollecting that there was no main line train to York until half-past-seven and that he would have plenty of time to dress and pursue her to the station. He rang down for a large whisky that was brought up by the hotel’s sole waiter, a man who moved as if he had served drinks to officers home from the Crimea. Stevie called him ‘George’. He called all waiters George and had done, long before the R.A.F. made so free with the name.
‘When you go down hold the taxi, George,’ he said, ‘I want it to take me to the station,’ but George said, in the deferential voice he had used to address young hunting bucks who met at the pub before the airfield was built, ‘Madam took it, sir, and it can’t make the return journey to York in less than an hour. Would you like me to find out if Mr Armitage’s hack is free?’
‘No, scrub it,’ Stevie said, and finished his
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