2002 - Any human heart

by William Boyd

  Saturday, 31 October

  Not an MTB as it turns out but a Harbour Defence Motor Launch—HDML 1122. We are heading south at steady speed, the New Jersey coast on our starboard side. Now doubly worried. I met my ship and crew, who had come over from Bermuda, in Brooklyn harbour. The 1122 is commanded by a taciturn young Scot called Sub-Lieutenant Crawford McStay. I handed him over my orders (signed by the Admiral of the Atlantic Fleet) and he made no attempt to conceal his reactions—incredulity and then disgusted resignation—as he read them. He asked me what my last command had been and I told him something of the ‘honorary’ nature of my rank in the RNVR. ‘The Bahamas?’ he said. ‘And just what the hell’re we meant to do there?’

  ‘You’ll follow my orders,’ I said, very coolly. He practically spat on the deck. No love lost there, I’m afraid. The 1122 is a big new wooden boat—armed with depth charges and a couple of Lewis machine guns—with a crew often. I share a small cabin with McStay (bunk beds, I’m on top) which is also where we eat. We are to make our way down to Florida and thence to the Bahamas. I think what really disgusted McStay was the amount of luggage I had loaded on board (I know there will be formal receptions and I’ll have to dress accordingly) and the fact that I had my golf clubs with me.

  Wednesday, 4 November

  Nassau, New Providence Island, the Bahamas. McStay and the crew are billeted at Fort Montagu, about a mile east of the town, while I have a room in the British Colonial Hotel—which seems full of American engineers and contractors apparently here to build the new airfields. Went for a walk through the town—throngs of American GIs and RAF trainees. If you don’t look too closely Nassau appears pretty rather than shabby. It’s a small colonial town, population 20,000 or thereabouts. Wooden buildings painted pink, plenty of shade trees. The centre of town is a neat little square with a statue of Queen Victoria flanked by the government offices and the law courts. From the harbour front the ground rises to a ridge on whose crest sits Government House (colonnaded front, also pink). The main street is called Bay Street, about five blocks long with a shaded boardwalk and lined with souvenir shops selling fancy goods and tat for tourists. There is a yacht dub to the east and, west of the Colonial Hotel, a golf course and country club. Wenner-Gren owns an island, Hog Island, forming the seaward edge of the harbour lagoon.

  I hired a taxi and was driven around: here and there are large houses set in tropical gardens and, inland, two big airforce bases where they train pilots. We passed Government House and I saw the Union Jack flying. I tried to imagine the Duke and Duchess in this curious, dead-end, tropical nowhere. ‘Small town’ takes on a new meaning out here. He’s been quartered in Nassau, out of harm’s way, for as long as is possible, that much is obvious. To have been King—and have come to this—is as close to a blatant insult imaginable. Three invitations to dine already. I go up to GH tomorrow to pay my respects.

  Thursday, 5 November

  The reception at Government House was for some visiting American general. The rooms were prettily decorated, chintzy, full of plants and flowers, photographs on polished tables. I was served a gin and tonic and mingled with the other guests—military types in the main with a few local dignitaries sweating in their suits. I felt bizarrely presumptuous in my smart white uniform with my commander’s stripes. The Duke’s aide-de-camp↓ introduced me: ‘You’ll remember Commander Mountstuart, sir.’

  ≡ Major Grey Philips—the Duke’s comptroller.

  The Duke, very tanned, in a fawn suit, wearing a pink and yellow checked tie, looked blankly at me. ‘Lisbon, 1940, sir,’ I said. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said vaguely and then darted off. He went straight to the Duchess: they spoke quietly together and the Duchess looked over at me, she said something to him and he came straight back, smiling now, and dapped me on the shoulder. ‘Mountstuart,’ he said. ‘Of course! Brought your golf dubs?’

  Later I spoke to the Duchess. Her hair and make–up; were’ as immaculate as they had been in Lisbon. She looked thinner, however, though perhaps it was simply the short sleeves on her dress exposing her bony, meagrely musded arms. She was very friendly and lowered her voice to say, ‘What brings you to this moron paradise? Watch out or you’ll die of boredom before you know it.’ I smiled. ‘Hunting submarines,’ I said. ‘We must have you to dinner,’ she said, ‘right away. Where are you staying?’ I sense I am back in the swim again.

  Tuesday, 15 December

  I’ve been to three dinners at Government House, the last occasion actually sitting beside the Duchess. I’ve golfed with the Duke too, played half a dozen rounds, but always as part of a four-ball. I’ve visited every bar and club and, it seems, most of the private houses and have met enough RAF personnel to last me a lifetime.

  This small town, like any small town, is rife with rumour and gossip, intrigue, resentments, vendettas, slights, alliances and misalliances, cliques and sets, both amongst the so-called establishment and the parvenus. As far as I can tell Nassau society is divided roughly along these lines. At the top the governor and his entourage. Second, the politicians—the ‘Bay Street Boys (or Bandits’)—local merchants, bigwigs and wealthy men who sit in and control the House of Assembly. Then there are, somewhat apart, the military transients and visitors. Then there are the elderly tax-exiles—British and Canadian in the main—stuffy and conservative who look with disdain on a younger, more raffish crowd: dubious entrepreneurs, divorcees, relatively rich talentless young men and their girlfriends. They sail, they have parties, they drink too much, they swap partners easily. In the tourist season, December to March, they are enhanced by their American equivalents looking for winter sunshine and la dolce vita. Another subgroup, which may overlap with any of the above, are the few wealthy and powerful men who wield a publicly unacknowledged influence because of their fiscal clout. Wenner-Gren was in this category and I have to say it’s hard to find anyone with a bad word for him. Rumours do swirl around the mention of his name: that he was a personal friend of Goering; that he was building a Nazi U-boat pen on Hog Island; that he owns a bank in Mexico City. I pass it all on, duly tagged as speculation, to NID. Finally there is another world—one that is the most populous and, in a paradoxical way, the most invisible: the native Bahamians themselves. Most of them are poor labourers or fishermen who live in a sprawling shanty over the ridge from Government House called Grant’s Town. The colour bar is almost absolute in the Bahamas—certainly in social terms (even the Duchess’s canteen for the troops’ is segregated). I’m told the code is as rigid as in the southern states of America. Any softening of attitudes here in the Bahamas, it is argued, would discourage the American tourists. Even in Government House no black is allowed through the front door.

  All these worlds interact to a certain degree—most obviously at Government House receptions (though the only blacks are serving canapes). I’m a regular at these functions and I watch the crowd carefully and discreetly glean information—people are very forthcoming. I have to say the Duke and Duchess move through their guests serenely and smilingly, as if there were nowhere else on earth that they would rather be, and in no other company. The acting is flawless.

  They are away at the moment in Miami. McStay is begging to be allowed to put out to sea. The 1122 is the smartest, cleanest, most polished boat in Nassau harbour.

  Sunday, 20 December

  We ride at anchor off a small island in the Exuma chain. On deck the men fish and swim. The sun beats down out of a washed-out blue sky. We seem very far from the war. Freya writes to say we have retaken Benghazi and Soviet forces have encircled the German army at Stalingrad. The unhappiest man in the world is Crawford McStay.

  1943

  Friday, 1 January

  Last night I went to a New Year’s party at Cable Beach given by a young widow called Dorothy Bookbinder (American). There was a band and champagne from 8.00 till midnight and beyond. Dorothy—in her forties, blowzy, a drunk, I suppose—is living with the ‘Marquis’ de Saussay—of French extraction, I would say, rather than
French. Dorothy has a daughter (Nineteen? Twenty-two?) called Lulu who made a beeline for me as the dock struck twelve and planted a long wet kiss on my lips. I shook her off and went down to the beach and looked at the stars and thought about Freya. Lulu found me and candidly propositioned me: ‘Why won’t you fuck me, Logan?’

  ‘Because I don’t fucking want to,’ I said. Then she fell over, dead drunk. So I carried her back and laid her on a cane sofa on the terrace and slipped away.

  News from Government House is that the Duchess is unwell—exhausted, tormented by her ulcer. I think I’ll let McStay take the 1122 off to the Out Islands for a few days. Nassau is beginning to get to me as well.

  Thursday, 14 January

  I wrote up my third report for NID and took it out to Oakes Field and gave it to [Squadron Leader] Snow (he flies it to Miami and someone takes it to New York and from there it reaches NID). Snow says the Duke will be offered the governorship of Australia as a sop. I felt my heart lighten at the prospect. I’ve only been here a few weeks and already I feel I’m rotting. I’m putting on weight, drinking heavily, I spend too much time in the bar of the Prince George Hotel talking to nobodies. My intellectual life is nonexistent: I read and write nothing (except letters from and to home). I begin to understand what the Duchess meant by ‘this moron paradise’.

  My report was a diligent account of the latest rumours. I have been told, in confidence, by de Saussay that Sir Harry Oakes↓ has advanced the Duke two million dollars and Wenner-Gren is using this to speculate on the currency markets through his bank, the Banco Comercial↓ in Mexico City—all profits to go to the Duke.

  ≡ Oakes, who had discovered the world’s second-richest gold mine in Canada, was the richest man in Nassau and the colony’s biggest benefactor.

  ≡ Actually the Banco de Continente.

  No doubt NID can see if this can be confirmed or denied: it would certainly explain where the money came from. I can’t really believe the Duke would take such a risk, however: too many people in London, New York, the Bahamas could trace the money if he suddenly starts making payments to Oakes or some subsidiary.

  Saturday, 27 February

  Thirty-seven years old. I celebrated with a morning masturbate. Visions of Freya, naked, on top—her round, slightly pendulous breasts juddering as she rode me. I’ve coped with absence and abstinence before in this endless war but something about this scurrilous town seems to have increased my sex-drive. An RAF wife touched my cock under the table at dinner last night—1 can’t even remember her name.

  §

  Threatened to report McStay on a charge of insubordination. He practically called me a coward in front of [Petty Officer] Dignam. The men make no complaint about their posting: they recognize a cushy number when they see one. Only McStay’s martial instincts are frustrated. Perhaps I’ll let him drop a depth charge tomorrow.

  Monday, 22 March

  Intense pangs of loneliness: missing Freya and Stella so much it is like an ache in the gut. I suppose this is the soldier-on-active-service’s lot—and the world must be full of millions of men missing their loved ones. Such collective yearning is almost impossible to imagine. Still, I feel slightly fraudulent: a pseudo-sailor spying on an exiled duke in a tropical island resort…Would I feel better if I were in a trench in the North African desert?

  Feeling sorry for myself, I telephoned McStay and offered him dinner at the Prince George. I could practically hear his astonished mind working. Eventually he managed to say yes and we agreed to meet there at 8.00.

  ‘ The season is ending here in Nassau—the rich American tourists are closing their villas and beach cabanas and returning home. Walking from the hotel down Bay Street to the Prince George, you could sense the island returning to its normal comatose self- the shops empty, the horse carriages standing idle, only the occasional large car cruising along looking for some indication of fun to be had.

  McStay was stiff and overly formal at first (maybe he thought this was a prelude to him being sent home?), but as I called for more drink he began to unwind somewhat. I have to remember he is only twenty-three—he must look on me as an irritating older man who has stepped in to bugger up his promising career. He conies from Fife, his father is a farmer. McStay has one of those ‘carved’ faces—not an ounce of flesh on him—which is not so much handsome as noteworthy, as some statues or gargoyles are. He might suit a beard.

  Towards the end of the meal, a little tight, he leant forward and said, ‘I mean, Logan, what the fuck’re we doing here? It’s been nearly five months.’ I suppose I shouldn’t even have dropped the smallest hint but I thought I owed it to him. ‘Who’s the most important Englishman this side of the Atlantic?’ I said. He knew, of course, who I was talking about. ‘Let’s just say we’re keeping a close eye on him,’ and I tapped the side of my nose, as one does. He nodded, his face serious. I think he’ll be more relieved to know there is a purpose, a mission—but probably no less frustrated.

  As we left, de Saussay came in with some of his chums and two really incredibly beautiful girls I’d not seen before. They seemed to know McStay, and de Saussay convinced us to join them for more drinks. I found myself talking to a tall, handsome, foreign-looking man who let it be known early in the conversation that he was Harry Oakes’s son-in-law. He invited me to lunch at his house on Sunday. I asked McStay how he knew these people. ‘Sailing,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing to do, so I go sailing with them.’

  Saturday, 10 April

  Golf with the Duke at the country club. Just the two of us—and his detective stayed at the dub house. It was humid, hot and quiet—all the tourists gone. The Duke seemed troubled until he sunk a 25-foot putt at the third to win the hole and then visibly brightened. I let him win the fifth and eighth, which put him three up at the turn and in a much better mood. He became very chatty.

  Things we talked about:

  His desperation to leave Nassau—ranting on about ‘this lousy little island’. He’d asked Churchill for a job in America—he has no interest in any other governorships, however grand. He’s proud of what he’s achieved here—‘the worst posting in the British Empire’.

  The familiar antagonism directed at the court. Finds the King and Queen unbelievably petty and vindictive. I think what irks him more than anything is their denying the Duchess her HRH appellation (shades of his servant Fletcher problem). ‘A wife takes her husband’s rank,’ he kept insisting. ‘Regardless of anything.’ I sense much of the blame directed at the Queen (easier than blaming his brother, I suppose). ‘She can’t bear Wallis.’

  Finds the House of Assembly difficult and selfishly obstructive, filled with ‘grasping, common little men.’

  Says he likes Churchill but no longer counts him as a staunch ally. ‘Winston knows who butters his bread.’

  On the seventeenth he chipped in from a bunker and spontaneously invited me back to GH for supper. I handed over his winnings and he went to tell the detective to call ahead. So I had to pay for his caddie as well as mine. He does not like spending his money, our esteemed governor, however paltry the sum.

  Back at GH we were served drinks at the pool cabana. The Duchess looked well, her dark hair caught up in a kind of silk turban. She bemoaned the coming hot season, saying to me, ‘You’ve no idea how hard it is to get permission to go to the States. All the to-ing and fro-ing, the bowing and scraping: ‘Please Mr Churchill ask the King if we can go to Miami for the weekend.’’ The Duke looked thoughtful, pulling on his pipe and fussing with one of his cairn terriers. Then to my astonishment the Duchess asked me a question about myself- about what I’d done before the war—and I told her I was a writer. They both flashed a glance at each other and the Duke asked me if I knew Philip Guedalla,↓ a friend of his.

  ≡ Philip Guedalla (1889-1944), writer, a friend of the Windsots who wrote a pro-Windsor account of the Abdication Crisis, The Hundred Days (1934).

  I said I’d met him once or twice and they relaxed: it was a little moment of caution
and alarm that soon passed.

  When it grew dark we went into the dining room and had chilled soup and scrambled eggs to follow. They have a French chef, a butler and the Duke has his valet and the Duchess her maid—plus innumerable Bahamian staff. We reminisced about Biarritz and Lisbon. It was as relaxed and intimate as I’ve ever been with them, the Duchess calling me Logan, the Duke rising from his chair to show me the special stance he’d adopt to fade a long iron into a green. Inevitably the court came up again, the King and Queen and their tedious vendetta. The Duchess, laughing, said, ‘Oh, they can’t stand me. But it’s David they’re really worried about. She has to keep him as far away from Bertie as possible.’

  The Duke remonstrated vaguely, but I could see that the line the conversation had taken was not displeasing.

  ‘No, no,’ said the Duchess. ‘They couldn’t have you in England. Bertie’d be ignored, forgotten, if you were there. All eyes would be on you, darling.’ Who knows, she may be right? I sensed the Duke wanted to rush across the room at that moment and take her in his arms.