As they crossed it and slowed down a sudden pang assailed her and she asked, breathlessly:
“How long have you got, Ted? How long, darling?”
He dragged her from the tent and pushed her into a jeep that was standing parked against the wall of a shattered villa.
“Just tonight, Margy! Just the one night, so let’s make the most of it, honey!”
He jumped in and started the engine as a dozen questions rose to her mind. How did he get here, how did he find out about her being here? Why did he have to return so soon? Who owned the jeep he was driving? She put none of the questions to him, for there was no time to waste on questions.
“A mile or so out of town, Ted…there’s a kind of garden, overlooking the sea. Lots of flowers grow there, thousands and thousands of flowers, and they smell heavenly! Oh, Ted darling! This is a miracle, a lovely, lovely miracle!”
“Yes, and you have to make ’em happen these days,” he said grimly, groping impatiently for her hand as the jeep roared down the white ribbon of road.
CHAPTER XXXII
Elaine Goes Back On Dreams
ARCHIE WAS DISCHARGED from prison at 7.50 a.m. on October 1st, 1943.
The prison staff, from Governor downwards, were genuinely sorry to see the last of him, for he left behind him not only a superbly well-ordered store but any number of interesting ideas related to store-keeping and the art of indenting for stores generally. In a quiet and tactful manner he had put several harassed officers in the way of improving themselves, and the Governor wrote on his report: ‘Seldom in my experience has a man in my charge shown more keenness to make use of such opportunities as present themselves during a sentence of imprisonment.’
Archie left prison without a trace of bitterness but in spite of this his original attitude to society had undergone no fundamental change during the past twelve months. He had freely acknowledged his debt to society as regards the girl he had killed. Having settled that debt with a whole year of his life, he now went out into the world again without the slightest disposition to apologise to anyone.
In some ways he had reaped material benefit from his experience, for not only had he found plenty of spare time in which to think, but time in which to read. He had wasted no time on fiction but concentrated on a close study of various technical volumes, beginning with Everyman His Own Lawyer, and ending, during the final month of his sentence, with the patient digestion of a massive work, entitled Gutteridge’s Ownership of Property.
The Governor had shaken hands with him very cordially and in wishing him the best of luck had asked him if he had any ideas regarding his own future.
“First, I intend to make some money, sir,” said Archie, so promptly and confidently that the Governor, a solemn man, had laughed outright.
That was indeed Archie’s main intention as the gates closed behind him and he stepped out into the crispness of an autumn morning.
It ought not, he reflected, to be so very difficult for he was far from destitute, and had a credit balance of just over two thousand, the proceeds of the sale of the corner shop. In addition, he was fighting fit and told himself that he had never felt better. This, very possibly, had something to do with his enforced abstemiousness, and his very modest consumption of tobacco during the past year. He realised as much and had accordingly made at least one good resolution whilst in gaol. He would keep off spirits! His long hours of soul-searching during the period between lights-out and sleep, had convinced him that here was the root cause of all his troubles. During the year preceding the climax his brain had never been sufficiently clear to cope with sudden emergencies. He reasoned that had it been then he would never have bought those NAAFI goods, not at any rate, without covering the trail more efficiently than that idiot, Swift had covered his!
Neither would a sober man have quarrelled with his accountant in wartime, whereas the final blackout, after the discovery that his Floating Reserve had been stolen, must certainly be traced to excessive spirit-drinking over a long period.
Well, decided Archie, hitching his belt and sniffing the heady air of freedom, here’s an end to all that! From now on it’s a glass of bitter or nothing at all!
He had also made up his mind not to return to the grocery trade. There was plenty of money in it, would always be money in it, particularly during wartime, but the retention of a worthwhile margin of profits was becoming a job for a trained accountant, and Archie had never enjoyed wrestling with columns of figures. In his view it occupied far too much time, time that a businessman ought to employ more profitably. Cheap property might be a better bet, providing one had the capital, but his recent study of the property market had convinced him that two thousand pounds was insufficient capital to begin business on the scale that he contemplated. He decided, therefore, that there would have to be an intermediate effort, something to do with cars, perhaps, or something where a maximum stock could be procured with the minimum outlay.
He occupied his mind on these matters as he walked down the long, concrete ramp, that led away from the prison, consciously disciplining his thoughts because he did not want to start thinking about Elaine.
He had been immensely braced by her visit but subsequently cast down by her failure to repeat it, or to answer either of the letters he had written to her during the last two months.
His common sense told him that he could hardly expect her to welcome a renewal of their association. She had been a good deal cleverer than he and had apparently secured her future with this wealthy American. He might have competed with the Yank in the past, when he had plenty of money, but such capital as he now possessed he needed, every single penny of it, and Archie had never expected a girl to associate with him for the sake of his company alone, certainly not a girl like Elaine, who had even fewer illusions than himself.
All the same, he had rather hoped that she would have written at least once and wished him good luck on coming out. He would not have interpreted such a message as anything but a gesture of comradeship, made for old times’ sake. There was after all, a limit to a man’s self-sufficiency, and Archie had now reached the age when he needed at least one confidant to combat his increasing fear of loneliness. Maria had never been a confidante, not even in the earliest days of their marriage, and the only human beings in whom Archie had confided during the last twenty years had been his father-in-law, old Toni Piretta, and his own son, Anthony, and now both were dead. His two younger children, James and Juanita, he would have had difficulty in recognising in the street, and anyway, since the theft of the money, and his arrival in gaol, he had neither seen nor communicated with his wife or children. There was his father, now disposed to be friendly, but the gulf between them was far too wide to be bridged, save by occasional handshakes and family gossip. The best they could hope for was to be civil to one another on the few occasions that they were likely to meet and Archie, on his part, had every intention of prolonging the truce with his father into the future.
Turning these matters over in his mind he reached the road that wound past the foot of the prison approach and stood indecisively at the pedestrian crossing, leading to a footpath that divided the two blocks of buildings between the main road and the railway station.
It was still only a few minutes past eight o’clock and his train was not due to leave for town until nine-forty. He wondered what to do with his first ninety minutes of freedom and had almost made up his mind to go to the station buffet and buy himself some tea and a newspaper, when a persistent hooting attracted his attention.
He looked towards the town and saw a solitary, saloon car, parked just beyond the studs.
He shaded his eyes against the strong morning sun and suddenly his heart glowed with pleasure, for he recognised the woman sitting in the driver’s seat as Elaine.
In a moment he was beside her and was surprised to find that she was alone.
“Since when did you own a car?” he demanded.
“Since this morning,” she told him, smiling.
“I got myself driven down here and then hired this one locally, giving your name as a reference!”
“Good God,” he exclaimed, “I’m a gaolbird! How did you manage to talk them into that?”
“Oh, I can talk men into anything,” she replied, jocularly. “Besides, the car’s hired out in my name, and I’m legally responsible. You were banned from driving, weren’t you?”
“For three years,” he said, getting in and watching her make a few practice gear-changes, “but the ban ought to be lifted long before that. We’re working on it now—they went to no end of trouble to prepare the ground when I told them that I was wanting to buy a van and start up again. You’ve no idea…me and the Gov, we’re just like that in there!” and he crossed his fingers and slapped her on the knee.
“I knew you’d like to be driven back,” she said, “so I came down here yesterday and fixed it. We can return the car at the London depot.”
He regarded her with affection and admiration. She looked, he thought, more attractive than ever, in her neat olive-green two-piece, absurdly small hat with eye-veil, and long French gloves. She was thinner too, particularly about the face and her appearance had the stamp of the West End salons, from freshly-permed hair, down to expensive-looking Italian shoes.
“You look like the answer to a young lag’s prayer!” he told her. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming down?”
“Let’s go!” she said, “we don’t want to hold an inquest under the wall, do we?”
He laughed, and pinched her thigh, as she clumsily let out the clutch. The big car lumbered off, lazily, and with a persistent squeak issuing from somewhere near the rear of the chassis.
“Could we stop somewhere for breakfast?” he asked her. “I’m supposed to have had mine but I was so keyed up that I couldn’t swallow a mouthful!”
“Neither could I,” said Elaine, “but in my case it wasn’t excitement, it was getting up so damned early! Why do they have to turn you chaps loose in the small hours? There’s cigarettes in my handbag, help yourself!”
“You always were a lazy little bitch,” he said, “but by God, am I pleased to see you!”
“Thank you, Archie,” she said, so demurely that he laughed again and the sound of his own laughter lifted his spirits to such a peak that he had to resist an impulse to sing. She settled down to drive, snuggling down in the seat like a Persian cat, he thought, glancing sideways at her—and he proceeded to light two cigarettes, one of which he stuck between her lips. He drew the smoke down into his lungs and blew it out slowly through his nose.
“This is the life, Elaine,” he told her, as the old car coasted down the hill into open country.
It was understandable that Elaine felt no urge to discuss her last minute decision to meet him at the gaol gates. Her appearance there was, in a sense, a surprise to herself, for it was not until the early afternoon of the previous day that she had finally made up her mind to come.
The decision had been the result of a fresh wave of doubt in respect of the wisdom of marriage to Lieutenant Ericssohn. Elaine was always having doubts nowadays, and was in fact, far less sure of herself than she had ever been, but it would be difficult to attribute her uncertainties and strange loss of direction to any one particular factor of her life.
For some time now she had settled for the fact that Woolston, viewed solely as a lover, was a pitiful substitute for any of the men in her past. He claimed to be thirty-nine, but she estimated his correct age to be somewhere around forty-five and sometimes he behaved towards her as if he was already a grandfather.
Sometimes it seemed as if her doubts stemmed from her sheer inability to rouse in him any physical desire, for this made her conscious of her own age in a way that she had never been aware of it prior to her engagement.
She told herself over and over again that it had never been an intention on her part to seek a lover in this latest association, that Woolston was billed in her mind as The Great Provider, not The Great Lover. She went on to tell herself that, once she was safely settled in the States, admittedly a woman’s country, she could afford to overlook his undistinguished appearance, his absurdly old-fashioned air of patronage towards her as a woman, his undeniable fuddy-duddiness, and his distressing lack of virility. All these drawbacks were trivial in a man who was able to buy a mink stole as though he was purchasing a box of chocolates.
How often had she convinced herself that this was the kind of man for whom she had been looking all these years? What did it matter if he was middle-aged, a foreigner, and tiresome fusspot? He was rich, and he liked to be seen moving with her among younger and envious officers. He flaunted her like a captured banner at unit dances, and other social occasions, and as long as he felt like that about her he would continue to pay for the privilege. If he was disinclined to exact the customary payment then so much the better! What woman in her senses would want to be pawed by Woolston?
This line of reasoning made good sense to Elaine, but it brought her no permanent reassurance. She could not even explain to herself why it did not, for over the years she had lost the habit of self-scrutiny. She had made a plan and satisfied herself that it was a good plan. When Woolston Ericssohn had crossed her path her instincts, or what she had mistaken for her instincts had told her that here was the means of attaining her object, here was the provider of house, terrace, yacht, car, hammock, courtiers, and all the clothes and adornments that she was ever likely to need! The real trouble lay in the fact that plan and instincts were now sadly at variance. For the time being the plan had lulled her instincts, and, as time went on, she came to understand that her mounting uncertainty was merely the manifestation of their reawakening.
The plan had been all very well in its way, but it had originated in her head and Elaine, who did not know herself nearly as well as she imagined she did, was a sensual woman, to whom the attentions of a virile man, a healthy, normal man like Archie Carver, were a physical necessity. It was on this very issue, indeed, that she had first quarrelled with Esme, resenting her elevation to the role of a beautiful but remote lady-in-the-tower. Furthermore, it was this characteristic that had drawn her, but without her being fully aware of the fact, to Eugene, to Tappertitt, the little circus owner, to Archie himself, and to the Dutch sea-captain.
Woolston Ericssohn, notwithstanding his enormous financial lead over every predecessor, simply did not measure up to her requirements. It might have been different had he been a tolerant, easy-going man, the kind of middle-aged husband content to look the other way if she sought consolation among younger men, but she was aware that this was not the case, that in addition to being pompous and pettifogging, he was also jealous and dictatorial, the kind of man who was certain to make endless scenes about other men and, if provoked, to meet infidelity with spite.
There was something else about the American that caused her uneasiness. She had been more shocked than she had realised over the attack upon the Negro in the Manor meadow. Basically, a very tolerant person she had found it impossible to regard this incident as the inevitable outcome of a coloured man’s association with a white girl, and the assault had revealed to her the wide gulf existing between the people of the suburbs, of which she would always be one, and these high-spirited, open-handed extroverts now living in their midst.
One thought of them as being the same people but they were not, for beside them the people of the Avenue were like a group of tired old aunts and uncles, trying to smile at the horseplay of children at a party, simply because they felt it was expected of them. In so many ways the Americans resembled children. They had the same impulsive generosity, the same sudden streaks of cruelty, and the same brutal intolerance for those who did not conform; Woolston, for all that he was an officer, and a mature man of substance, was no different from the G.I.’s who had actually engaged in the wolf hunt. What would it be like to have to share his prejudices day in, day out? What would it be like never to see Piccadilly Circus again, or the shops in Bond Street, or even the wi
de curve of the Avenue?
She took her misgivings to her sole woman friend, Muriel Payne, the gown-shop ally of the night of her engagement, but she received scant sympathy in this quarter. Muriel, at thirty-five, had been twice divorced and was now living with a third man, who was reported to have made a small fortune out of the manufacture of army huts.
“What do you care how old he is?” Muriel had exclaimed. “Why should you care if he doesn’t burst a blood vessel when he sees you in your scanties? You’re going to marry him, aren’t you? And he’s loaded, isn’t he? What’s come over you lately, Elaine? What on earth are you bitching about? I always thought you fancied yourself queening it under the magnolias?”
“But Muriel, he’s so…so self-righteous in some ways, and so hopelessly adolescent…!”
“What do you expect of a man who coughs up for this as though he was buying you a choc-ice in a cinema?” demanded Muriel, holding up the mink stole, that Elaine had thrown across a display stand when she entered the salon. “Look here, Elaine, I’m your friend, and because I was, I did all I could to help land him, didn’t I? Well, be your age, and for God’s sake stop looking a Derby winner in the mouth! You play along with Woolston, right up to the minute he says ‘I Will’, because if you ditch him, or even think of ditching him, so help me I’ll move in myself!”
Elaine took her advice, and did not answer Archie’s letters, but two days before his release-date something happened that was to resolve her doubts once and for all.
Woolston invited her to meet his colonel and in her presence the two of them at once began to discuss plans for a wedding in the locality of the depot.
It seemed that the colonel, who was the most naïve American Elaine had yet encountered, had some fantastic idea of using the wedding to further Anglo-American relations in the area. He planned a bumper reception in the forecourt of the Old Manor, inviting, as guests of the U.S. Army, a hundred or more of the local residents on whom the American technicians had been billeted during the past twelve months.
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