by John Masters
‘Eh? What is it? Are you all right?’
‘What time is it, darling?’
‘Why do you want to know? Och, you don’t want to know at all, you just want another cup of tea, and it’s no’ a bad idea, at that.’
She saw his legs drape dimly over the edge of the upper berth, then he landed soundless and in perfect balance on the floor. She reached out, spread her thighs and pulled him down.
Afterwards they lay side by side, squeezed in very close. Archie said, ‘You’ve as lickerish a tail as the Mexican dancer who near bit my ear off in Vera Cruz. Why doesn’t Quentin light the fire, tell me that? You never have.’
She tried consciously to think without letting this passion, this touch of his flesh on hers, the soaking heat in her loins, distort her thoughts. She said, ‘When I married, I was a virgin, of course, And a McLeod …’
‘The fire’s there in all McLeods, just waiting.’
‘Just waiting, that’s right. I was ready, willing, longing, even. But Quentin never saw that. He’s ashamed of having to make love, I think. He never looked at me the way you do … you did, from the beginning. I’ve never seen that tenderness in his face, nor the strength … except towards the men, his soldiers … brutal, foul-mouthed private soldiers.’
‘But he’s not a pouf, surely? I’ve met him, what, just three times and he seemed normal to me. But only women really know about poufs.’
‘He’s normal,’ she said, ‘too normal. Dull. He doesn’t like paintings, except of horses. He doesn’t read books, except about soldiers. His idea of a perfect meal is roast beef, roast potatoes, and India Pale Ale. He’s got two wonderful children, but he doesn’t care anything for them, hardly spends a moment with them.’
‘Only seems not to care, perhaps, Fiona. There’s many a man born without the gift of the gab … or any other way to show what he feels.’
She gathered herself and burst out – ‘Archie, why don’t I leave him, and come to live with you? I’m a good cook, and I can sew and darn – and I’ll learn to wash clothes.’
‘There’s the McLeod blood,’ he said softly, ‘wild as the Cuillins. Reckless. A McLeod never cares what anyone else thinks. What about your mother?’
‘She’ll understand. She wasn’t happy with my father, either.’
‘Quentin’s family, then? They’re a decent lot, I understand.’
‘I don’t care what any of them think!’
‘Guy and Virginia, then?’
She felt the tears coming and buried her face in his shoulder, and mumbled, he hardly able to make out the words, ‘Oh God, I wish the Sinn Feiners would murder him, or there’d be a war and he would be blown up. Then we could get married and live together the rest of our lives.’
She felt his arm moving, a hand stroking her hair, then his voice, low and soft and with the Glasgow burr accentuated. ‘Ye like art, Fiona, but you’re no’ an artist, or ye’d understan’ yer husband better. But I’m thinking ye only understan’ yersel’. That ye can express, an’ make plain … while he understands you, but canna make it plain … And you may be getting your war sooner than you think.’
She stirred, raising herself on one elbow. The train was climbing, the engines working hard, the rhythm of the wheels slowed over the rail joints. ‘What do you mean?’
He spoke carefully, seriously – ‘I have a German friend, an artist, Helmuth. I think you met him at the flat once … or at the Academy, was it? … He’s been staying with me, only went back to Germany yesterday. His uncle’s in the German General Staff, a colonel, he said, and this uncle’s talking about the need to attack France before France attacks them.’
‘But why would France attack Germany?’
‘Revenge for 1871 … and the best moment for France would be when Germany is threatened, or actually attacked, by Russia.’
‘But …’
‘Look, lass, Helmuth doesn’t think the way his uncle does, and no more do I, but it’s soldiers that have the power, not painters, in Germany at least … Russia is Serbia’s protector, you might say. And the Austrians are threatening Serbia because of the murder of the Austrian Archduke in Serbia last month, but if the Austrians attack the Serbs, the Russians will come in to help the Serbs … and then the Germans to help the Austrians … and that’ll be the moment for France to go for Germany by the back door, d’ye see, while they’re facing the Russians.’
‘But …’
‘That’s enough of this talk, at such an hour. I’m going back to sleep.’
She put her hand on his penis and scrotum, and fondled them. He kissed her ear and said, ‘When the man wakes us, eh? Before breakfast.’
Unwillingly she let go, and he kissed her again, climbed easily up into his berth, and was soon snoring rhythmically and musically, while she lay on her back, her hands between her thighs, thinking of him.
The seventh hole at Dalmellie is a bogey four, 415 yards, a difficult hole, usually played across a fierce wind off the Firth of Clyde, the bent grass bowing low to the sandy soil, the air full of salt and a smell of seaweed. Archie had only taken up golf since meeting Fiona. She had taught him; with the help of a good eye, the power of concentration and, according to himself, an inborn ability to play the game shared by all Scots, he had made himself a fair player, with a handicap of fourteen. Fiona’s handicap was four, playing off the women’s tees, and she hit a long ball. At this hole she gave him a stroke.
Archie watched her tee up and give her driver a couple of practice wiggles. They were playing even so far, two holes apiece and two halved. Unless either of them foozled, they’d probably halve this one, too.
She addressed the ball with greater concentration, her grey-streaked blonde hair blowing free in the morning wind, her face turned down, the grey eyes hidden, the long legs spread under the McLeod tartan kilt, the heavy nailed shoes biting firmly into the short turf. She swung, and he followed the flight of the ball down the fairway. It was a clean drive, nearly two hundred yards, and a long roll, right in the centre of the fairway.
He addressed his own ball and swung. The wind took it further right than he had intended, and the ball ended up in the edge of the rough, a little short of Fiona’s. This might be her hole, after all.
They shouldered their own clubs – it was she who had refused to take a caddie, saying that she had so little time with him that she did not want to share any of it with a golf caddie.
They trod off together. Archie said, ‘How are Guy and Virginia?’
‘All right. They’re both still at school, of course.’
‘Didn’t I see that Guy was going to be asked to turn out for Kent?’
She nodded. ‘He doesn’t seem very keen on it. He told me at Henley that he’s a good schoolboy bowler, but doesn’t think he’s good enough – strong enough, was his word – to hide his something-or-other from grown-up professionals. What would that be?’
‘Heaven knows. They didn’t play much cricket round the slag heaps when I was growing up … but that boy’s got his head screwed on the right way, Fiona. And Virginia – does she still hate school?’
‘I suppose so. That’s the impression I get from her letters, though she doesn’t write about it much. She knows she’s got to get an education whether she likes it or not. Quentin would never take her out of Cheltenham Ladies College – even if she had any idea what she wants to do instead, which she doesn’t, and nor do we.’
‘Not many girls really know what they want out of life at fifteen. Or boys, come to that. Is Guy still set on being an aeroplane pilot?’
‘And designer – yes.’
‘When will they be home?’
‘Wellington breaks up on the 21st, but Guy will spend a few days with a school friend in London. Tom – you know, my naval brother – asked him and another friend, a boy called Yeoman, to stay with him in his flat but Guy had already accepted the other people’s invitation, so he’ll go there and the Yeoman boy will stay with Tom, whose flat is quite close, I believe. They’
ll all see plenty of each other … Virginia will go straight home on the 28th. Mrs Orr will look after her.’
‘You won’t be back from your mother’s?’
‘Not till August 2nd.’
They reached their balls and Archie swore – ‘What a stinking lie! I think I’d better take the niblick.’
Fiona said, ‘Do you carry a mashie-niblick? You’d get a bit more distance.’
‘No. It’ll have to be the niblick.’
He made a good recovery and the ball rolled sixty yards up the course, resting in the middle of the fairway well past Fiona’s drive ball. Fiona looked at the green, and felt the wind on her cheek. A good brassie shot would put her on in two, and the seventh wasn’t a difficult green as far as she could remember. And she could remember well, for this Dalmellie was the course on which she’d reached the semi-finals in the Women’s Championship in 1906, the year after she’d met Archie.
She waggled the club gently, twice, adjusted her stance, checked the wind once more, and swung. The ball sang down the course, low and fast, curling gently to the nudging of the wind, to land on the near edge of the green, roll up the gentle slope and stop within five feet of the hole. A gruff voice from behind her cried, ‘Beautiful shot, madam … gorrgeous!’
Fiona started in astonishment, and turned. She had been concentrating so much that she had not realized that an old man pushing a bicycle had arrived beside the fairway on the narrow sandy path which skirted the links, between the brown grass and the unquiet, grey-green white-capped sea.
The old man, wearing a tam o’shanter, tweed breeks and jacket, and a large scarf, said in a strong Lowland accent –‘I hope I didna alarrrm ye, madam. It’s Mrs Rowland, isn’t it? Fiona McLeod that was? That backswing, so sweet and easy and without pushing, yet the ba’ flies two hundred yards, like a bird directed to the very centre of the green. I saw that swing so often, eight, ten years back on this very course, that I’d recognize it anywhere. And this is Mr Rowland, nae doot.’
Archie took off his cap with a slightly exaggerated bow – ‘Major Quentin Rowland, at your service, sir.’ He spoke as though with a pebble in his mouth but the Glasgow burr could not be altogether hidden. Fiona turned away to hide an incipient giggle.
The old man said, ‘Your wife’s a credit to Scotland, and to the great game, sir. But I’ll not be interrupting ye further. Good day, sir. Good day, madam.’
He climbed on to his bicycle and wobbled on along the path, pedalling hard in the light sand that covered it.
Archie said, ‘Pheeew! So I’m Quentin now. And you’re better known even than I thought.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
He shook his head – ‘Better hurry up. That foursome behind us is on the sixth green.’
He struck his third, which rolled near the hole, and they walked faster down the fairway. She said, ‘Archie … I’ll get a divorce and we’ll be married.’
Archie said nothing for a while. He loved Fiona in many ways, but she was not the only woman in his life. His models, other painters’ wives, chorus girls, every now and then a sex-starved lady client whose house or garden he was painting – his speciality was landscape, but he was a good artist in all fields in his medium, oils – all shared his bed from time to time, for longer or shorter periods. He did not think that he was yet ready to become a respectable monogamist; and if he was, he doubted very much whether Fiona Rowland would be the mate he’d choose. He was in a way more a physician to her than a lover; and that was the way it should remain.
He said, ‘You’ll get no divorce from the courts without committing public adultery … which won’t be good for Guy and Virginia. And you canna be certain that Quentin will institute proceedings even then. He might be sure you’ll go back to him after you get over your infatuation.’
They came up to their balls and Fiona stopped, staring – ‘You’ve stymied me!’ she exclaimed in vexation.
She putted to the lip of the hole, the ball rolling close past the left side of Archie’s, which blocked a direct shot at the hole for her. Archie putted, and missed, the ball rolling well past to leave him with a six-foot return.
Fiona said, ‘Guy’s nearly grown up. I can’t go on living in misery just for his sake when he’s going to be a man, on his own, in two years.’
Archie missed his return putt and swore aloud.
Fiona said, ‘Louise – John’s wife – can look after Virginia. She thinks I’m a bad mother, anyway, and …’
‘Hush, woman!’
Archie sank his next putt, then, for a six: Fiona holed out for a four. ‘I give you one here,’ she said. ‘Still mine, by one … Virginia will be married soon enough.’
‘Not so easily, with her mother known to be living in sin with a low-class Scots painter … Come on, Fiona. Let’s play golf, and leave the talking till the evening.’
A hand on his shoulder awakened him, and her voice in his ear, ‘Darling … darling?’
He half-turned, for he had been lying on his side with his back to her in the wide bed. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s Tuesday morning – our last day.’
‘What time is it?’
‘I don’t know. About four o’clock.’ A clock in the corridor chimed four, in confirmation.
He rolled over, slid his hand down her belly into her pubic hair, and began the process of making love, gradually coming awake and absorbed as she responded.
Afterwards they slept a little, then he got up, drew back the curtains – for he loved the early light – then climbed back into bed, and she curled up against his side. He felt her soft weeping and tried wordlessly to soothe her. The sobbing stopped and when she spoke her voice was almost steady – ‘None of the Rowland men are any good to their women. Richard can’t give Susan children, and I know she wants them desperately. I like John the best, but he’s so dull that it’s hard to imagine him exciting Louise – even if she thought it proper … He’s religious, too, inside himself, and I think that comes between him and his real nature … I’ve never seen Tom with a woman of his own – only dancing at parties and so on. I think he’s afraid of us. The Governor’s probably the best of them. I’ve always felt that Mother – Mrs Rowland – was as happy sexually as a woman can be. He’s old now, of course, and so’s she – and not too well either, I’m afraid.’
‘And Quentin. Is he still making love to you?’
‘No. He knows I don’t want it, from him.’
‘Why did you marry him?’
She moved sharply in the bed. ‘I wish I knew. It was what one was supposed to do. He was a good-looking subaltern in a good regiment, with some money. My mother was doubtful, because he was English. She didn’t want a McLeod to marry a Sassenach. To tell the truth, I wanted to get away from home – not from Skye, but from being under mother’s control … And he was very young and eager – only twenty-two. His colonel was furious – they nearly made him leave the regiment – the Wealds don’t like officers to marry until they’re captains. They say, “Subalterns may not marry. Captains may marry. Majors should marry. Colonels will marry.” But Quentin was determined …’
Archie cut in, ‘Sounds as though he does have a fire in him, somewhere.’
‘He did, for me, for a time … And I did want to be on my own. All girls feel like that. Or ought to. I can’t understand why Alice hasn’t left home ages ago. There’s no need for her to look after her parents. They can afford servants or companions.’
‘Perhaps it’s love,’ Archie said.
Her hand was at his loins again, squeezing, caressing. He thought, what had he done, what did he have, that had lit this unquenchable flame in her? She didn’t look anything like a sultan’s houri, or one of those women whose life is men. She looked like a McLeod of Skye, yet she was his – mind, body, and soul. He shivered involuntarily, understanding suddenly that he was also hers. He had seldom had any trouble ending a liaison with other women – the models and typists and hungry rich – but what if he wanted to cut aw
ay from Fiona? Would he be able to? She was strong and God knew she was determined.
A picture came to him, unasked, of his widowed mother alone in her little house in the Gorbals … what would she think if she knew that her son was lying in a bedroom like a bloody palace with a McLeod all over him, begging for more? Fiona awed him now; but he wasn’t ready for her again.
He said, ‘Did you see the papers yesterday, where all the chancelleries of Europe are in a dither about Serbia and Austria? What we were talking about in the train?’
She kept her hand where it was, but said, ‘No, I didn’t see that.’
‘Well, some military correspondent was pointing out that once any of the big countries mobilized, war would be inevitable and that applied especially to France and Germany.’
‘I don’t really understand, Archie, and what could it have to do with us?’
‘Helmuth said his uncle hinted that Germany might invade Belgium as part of their plan to attack France.’
‘And so …?’
‘Britain has guaranteed Belgium’s frontiers. We’d have to go to war – or break our promise.’
‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said, ‘I can’t believe there’ll be a war, and as for us being in it…’ She sat up suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t go, would you? Volunteer?’
He laughed, ‘Me? Ah’m no’ crazy, lass! Let the soldiers fight. They get paid for it … But I tell ye, there’ll be dancing in the streets if we do get into it. The times are strange. The people won’t care whether it’s the French or the Germans we go against. There’s something rising in the blood in these islands … they’re spoiling for a fight. I don’t like it, but I sometimes wish they’d get it, and more than they bargained for.’
He slid out of bed, went to the window, and looked out. The sun was well up. Beyond the links, Arran, wreathed in scudding cloud, rose out of the grey Firth, the smoke from a black steamer drawn across it by the wind. The sea was rougher than it had been recently, waves driving up from the south-west to break in a line of spray along the sandy shore. Foam was being blown along the outer dunes, where the gorse and heather bushes thrashed in the wind. A sunlit shower rode slowly up the near fairway, and the flag in the centre of the hotel’s circular drive stood out straight from its pole.