The Fatal Gift

by Alec Waugh

  Iris had got engaged to a young American, an Air Force pilot. ‘Have you any details about him?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing that doesn’t make him eminently eligible. Twenty-eight years old; Groton and Amhurst: a corporation lawyer. Seaboard society.’

  ‘It almost makes him too eligible.’

  We laughed at that. We were both remembering the carnival at Roseau.

  ‘I wish you’d go down to Charminster … see how they all are, and write and tell me. I’d like to be put on my guard.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  I left Baghdad in the first week of June. Within a few hours of getting back, I started to pull strings for a passage to New York. With any luck, I was told, I should be able to get one early in September. I got in touch with Eileen and arranged to go down to Charminster at the end of August, and then a week before I was due to go there, a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the world became a different place for everyone. For Eileen as much as anyone.

  She met me at the station in a pony trap. ‘We have to be very careful of our petrol,’ she explained. She had come alone. ‘I wanted to have a gossip with you first. Nothing’s the way it was. You’ll realise that right away, but I thought I had better put you in the picture. It’s made more difference to Iris than to anyone. It meant that her boyfriend won’t have to fly against the Japs. For him the war is over. Think what that means to her. After losing Michael?’

  ‘Has she got over that?’

  ‘She’s very young. You can’t stay wedded to your grief.’

  ‘Will she get married right away?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. He’s twenty-eight. He’ll want to start a new life as soon as possible.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘I guess they’ll leave her here—for the present. Iris is not maternal. She’s never had a chance to be. She was in khaki the moment the child was weaned. Two years at her age is a long, long time.’

  ‘And you’ll soon have Derrick home.’

  ‘I know.’

  There was a pause. It was a complicated situation. One day, one day soon, probably, but no one could tell how soon, Charminster would belong to Raymond, but in the meantime it was the old man who made the decisions.

  ‘How is the old man ?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll see; he’s in good health. He had the good sense to lay down a cellar before the war. He’s never had to miss his glass of claret.’

  A lot of change can take place in four years in a man of his age. There is a point when a man who has scarcely changed in thirty years will become an old man in seven weeks. But Raymond’s father looked very much as he had that afternoon, nearly four years ago, when I had come down to say goodbye before sailing for the Middle East. He still stood erect. Everyone in England looked shabby in those days of clothes rationing, but his rough tweed suit fitted smoothly over his shoulders; he wore a Rambler bow tie, so that you could not tell if his collar was frayed; his worn brown brogues were well polished. His colour was good. He walked slowly, but steadily; he walked with a stick but did not seem to need it.

  I told him that I had seen Raymond in February. ‘Oh yes, dear Raymond. He’s had a good war; an MC and a majority. Does his wound worry him ?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to.’

  ‘That’s good. That’s very good. You know what everybody wanted in the first war; a cushy blighty; that’s what they wanted and then leave in London. London was different then. No real bombing, no real rationing, just those shaded lights: “The Bingboys are here.” “If you were the only girl in the world” … a different war that first one. How I wished that I’d been young enough. But I wasn’t … that’s how it was. I wasn’t.’

  ‘Raymond should be back in a couple of months,’ I told him. ‘He’ll find a change in Timothy Alexander. Five years is a long time.’

  ‘Five years is it, as much as that? A real schoolboy. Another year at Summerfields, then Eton. I’ll bet he’ll play at Lord’s, as his uncle did—you never saw his uncle, did you ?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know Adrian. I didn’t meet Raymond till after the war. But of course I knew Michael.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Michael. He was a good batsman too, not quite as good as his father would have been. Adrian’s style, so smooth, so easy, a Spooner in embryo; such a sportsman too. I remember a match for the village against a side from London. Adrian went in first, made his fifty, was seeing the ball like a balloon, but he got himself out; didn’t want to steal the show, even though the match wasn’t won yet, by a long chalk, but he wanted the boys to win it or lose it on their own. That was the spirit.’

  It was Michael, not Adrian, who had played that innings, I remembered watching it. The old man was confusing his grandson with his son; history had repeated itself. The same tragedy a second time; and now he concentrated on Timothy Alexander in the same way that he had transferred his allegiance to his grandson after Adrian’s death. He did not seem particularly interested in Raymond. He had never pictured him as the heir to Charminster. Charminster should go to a young man who cared for cricket; Adrian, Michael and now Timothy Alexander.

  My godson had certainly grown into a good-looking boy; he had not the dramatic good looks that his father must have had at his age, but he was tall for his age, he was well proportioned, he had the Peronne profile. I had kept in touch with him, sending him a packet of dates every now and then.

  ‘I’ve seen your father in Egypt several times,’ I said. ‘He’ll be home soon. He’s very excited about that. He’ll hardly recognise you.’

  ‘I’ll recognise him. A man doesn’t change much at that age. You look the same.’

  That was a rather adult remark for him to make, I thought. ‘Daddy tells me that you were catching spies in Baghdad. Did you catch a lot?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem very many.’

  ‘One spy, if he’s a good one, can do a lot of damage.’

  ‘What kind of damage ?’

  ‘In our case, he could tell the Germans if we had a lot of troops in Baghdad. If the Germans knew we had a lot, they would believe that we were going to attack through Turkey, so they would have to have troops on the Turkish border.’

  ‘But we didn’t attack through Turkey.’

  ‘I know, but we wanted the Germans to think we would.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because then they’d have to keep their troops on the Turkish frontier instead of sending them to the Western desert. We made one of the spies we captured send false information to the Germans. We called it our deception campaign.’

  ‘That’s clever. How did he send his message?’

  When I had been engaged in counter-espionage work— work that was as exciting as anything that I had ever done— I had warned myself that I should have to be very careful not to reveal secrets when I got back to England. Everyone, I fancied, would be fiercely inquisitive about how counterespionage agents work. But I found that no one took the slightest interest in what I had been doing; they wanted to tell me how they had dodged buzz-bombs and how they had wangled clothing and food coupons. Timothy Alexander was the first person to take any interest in my exploits. I explained to him how spies used secret inks. ‘They had pencils that looked like matches, and they would put them in their collars instead of stiffeners. They would smuggle them into Baghdad on the Orient Express.’ I told him about water writing. ‘Have you got a paintbrush?’ I asked. He brought one and a glass of water. I worked the paint-brush into a fine hard point, dipped it in some water, then wrote on a white sheet of paper. ‘Now let it dry,’ I said. We waited. The sheet was blank. ‘Now warm it in front of an electric fire. Do you see?’

  The water handwriting showed dark against the white. ‘They were beautiful script writers,’ I said. ‘They would write their messages in between the lines of an ordinary letter.’

  ‘How did you find them out?’

  ‘There might be something suspicious in the letter. It might be very dull. We’d wonder
why anyone should take all that trouble to write so dull a letter. Or again we might feel that someone was writing too often to someone he did not seem very fond of. It’s funny the kinds of thing that make one suspicious; when you’re on the scent.’

  His eyes widened with excitement. He examined the paper carefully. He hesitated. He seemed to be about to say something. Then changed his mind. ‘Did you actually arrest any men?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Were they very frightened ?’

  ‘Not in the least. They pretended to be surprised. They pretended to be innocent.’

  ‘And they were guilty all right?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘I read a story about a murderer. When he was arrested he said “Thank god; the strain of being on the run had become too great.” ’

  ‘There was one fellow our group arrested who fainted dead off when our man came behind him with a revolver. But that was in Teheran, I wasn’t there.’

  ‘I wonder how I’d feel if I was on the run,’ he said.

  ‘I hope you never are.’

  ‘It would be exciting all the same.’

  At lunch I sat next to Iris. I was curious to see what style was maintained in war conditions. The table looked much the same. The silver épergne in the centre—a pattern of ostriches and palms—was brightly polished. A row of dishes had been arranged along the sideboard. There was a salad: there were potatoes in their jackets; there was a bowl of cabbage. There was a loaf of bread; and various jars containing jam and pickles. There was a bowl of fruit. An entrée dish was simmering above a flame. It looked like a buffet meal. There were no servants, but there was no free-for-all atmosphere. The three women had apparently.^ allocated their respective duties. Neither I nor the old man had to rise from our seats. We were each given an ample helping from the entrée dish, which proved to contain sausages and kidneys. We were then presented with our vegetables. In front of my plate and the old man’s was a small silver dish containing butter. Otherwise there was no butter on the table. The sausages and kidneys proved to be excellent. Two decanters containing red wine stood in front of my host. One of them was unstoppered. A wine glass had been set in front of my place and of his. Before the others were glass tankards; there was a large jug containing cider, from which they helped themselves. ‘These young people say that they can’t take wine at lunch. Makes them sleepy, they say; what’s wrong with that, I ask: mustn’t make a fetish of this war effort, particularly now that the war is over; a short siesta is good for everyone. Still, if that’s how they feel, who am I to interfere and in this case it means all the more for us. We’ll finish off this bottle; it’s too old to be kept hanging about, after waiting all this time.’

  He raised the glass to the light, examined, then held it above his mouth. He sniffed, ‘Good on the nose,’ he said. He sipped appreciatively.

  ‘I remember that you were a Burgundian not a Bordelais,’ he said. ‘This is an Alare-Corton; a ’34; not an estate bottled wine, but I think you’ll like it.’

  ‘It’s heaven to me,’ I said. The stoppered and half-full decanter contained a Cockburn ‘34.

  ‘Too young for it,’ he said, ‘but I’m keeping the ’27s until Raymond’s back. We’ll have to work out a policy together. With all this bombing, I didn’t see any point in holding back. I’ve had my glass of port every night I’ve dined at this table since I came of age. I saw no reason to stop just because there was a war. How do you like this port?’ he said.

  ‘It’s nectar to me, but then I’m prejudiced. I’ve had no vintage port since 1941—only a glass or two of tawny in Cairo at the Turf Club.’

  ‘Port’s what you set most store by, isn’t it ?’

  ‘I’m probably laying up a heritage of gout; but when the time comes, I hope I’ll have the decency not to grumble.’

  The old man chuckled. ‘I don’t believe in that old canard about vintage port and burgundy being bad for one. I think that it’s a piece of propaganda put out by the Bordeaux shippers. I’m eighty. I’ve never had a twinge of gout.’

  I may add here in parenthesis as I write these lines, that at the end of my seventy-fourth year, in spite of my addiction to red burgundy and vintage port, I have not yet suffered any discomfort in my big toe.

  The old man took a second sip—‘I wonder if there’s anything in my life that has given me so much pleasure as vintage port. I enjoyed it at twenty; I enjoy it now at eighty. What else can one say that of? But I shall have to work out a new policy when Raymond’s back. The port we’ve got may be irreplaceable. All these import restrictions. They may force the shippers to start bottling in Oporto. It won’t be the same thing.’

  Talk at lunch was general for the most part; but while the entrée was being cleared away and the fruit and cake set upon the table, Iris and I did have a brief three minutes of talk together. ‘This is strange for me,’ she said, ‘seeing you again, just when I’m going to say goodbye to this particular world forever.’

  ‘Oh, come now, surely …’

  ‘Yes, oh come now, surely . . . I’m going to America in October and Will I ever come back? I question it.’

  ‘Come now, I hate to repeat myself, but you’ve an English daughter.’

  ‘Have I ? yes, of course, but will she think of herself as mine? will I, and this is more important, think of her as mine? Three years ago I was a widow, pregnant, saying to myself, you may be carrying under your heart the heir to a tide two centuries old; then suddenly I discovered I was not going to be that at all; that my daughter was going to be Miss Mary Peronne, that and no more, and that I was simply a war widow. One of a million others, that my child’s lot was to be no different from any other child’s, and then before I knew where I was, I found that I was a GI’s bride-to-be; and I was issued with a brochure, explaining to me how I should behave as a citizeness of the great Republic; that I wasn’t English any longer, and as I sat with this brochure in my hand I said, “So this is who you are after all.” Then I added, “Well, and perhaps that isn’t so bad. At least someone has taken the trouble to write this brochure to explain to me who I am,” and I said to myself, “Maybe that isn’t at all a bad thing to be, so don’t start feeling sorry for yourself.” And do you know what I thought then, maybe this’ll surprise you, I shan’t be Uncle Raymond’s step-daughter any more, and that just a litde saddened me, because that’s something I had rather enjoyed being.’

  ‘May I tell him that?’

  ‘Of course you may. It’s true. When Mummy told me that she was going to marry Uncle Derrick, one of the first things I thought was “That means I shan’t see Uncle Raymond any more.” And one of the afterthoughts to Michael, I mean to the happiness of falling in love with Michael, was being able to think “he’s Uncle Raymond’s nephew. I’m not going to lose him after all.” And now once again I am going to lose him.’

  ‘You needn’t say that, need you?’

  ‘Oh yes, I need. I’m not going to fool myself. This is the end of England for me. I’m in love with Franklin. I’ll make him a good wife and that means I’ve got to be a good American.’

  ‘You may not find that so difficult.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s a wonderful country; they’re a wonderful people. I can’t help envying you—just a little.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of becoming an American ?’

  ‘It’s different for a man.’

  ‘Is it? Perhaps it is. A man has to go on being what he starts as. He can’t change his name in the way a woman does. She’s the wife of the man she marries, ninety-nine times in a hundred.’

  She paused. I half changed the subject.

  ‘What made you feel that Raymond was so special?’

  ‘That’s something that I’ve asked myself. It wasn’t only his looks, and they are something, aren’t they?’

  ‘He’s the best looking man I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘You don�
�t use the word “beautiful” for a man; it sounds effeminate, but beautiful is the only adjective that’s right for him. It was a delight to look at him. But it was so much more than that. Does restful sound an odd word to use? He was so restful to be with.’

  I knew what she meant. Most human beings are trying to be something, or to appear something. That puts a strain on them, which in its turn puts a strain on you. Raymond never did that. ‘Have you ever heard anyone read poetry the way he did?’ she asked.

  ‘My father read poetry beautifully.’

  ‘Did he? Then you were lucky. That explains you and Evelyn. Uncle Raymond reading poetry was .. . well, it was so effortless. He let the poetry speak for itself. I shall never forget those evenings at Dominica, sitting out on that verandah, with the colours changing on the mountains, all those shades of green, and the rain sweeping across the valleys, all those valleys, and all that rain and all those greens.’

  ‘Do you often think about Dominica ?’

  ‘I often dream about it.’

  ‘Are they happy dreams?’

  ‘Yes and no. I wake up thinking that I’m in Dominica. Then I realise that I’m not. For a moment it’s a relief. Then I feel rather sorry. I’ll never see it again, I tell myself.’

  ‘Is Raymond in your dreams of it?’

  ‘That’s again, yes and no. He’s never there but he’s always about to be there, if you know what I mean. He’s always expected to be arriving any moment.’

  Was that symbolic of Raymond, I asked myself? Never quite on the stage in other people’s lives; expected, in the wings.

  ‘I wonder if I’ll ever see him again,’ she said.

  ‘Your daughter is his great-niece, don’t forget.’

  ‘There’s the Adantic in between; that’s quite a stretch of water.’

  ‘I’ll often be coming over. I’ll liaise between you.’

  ‘Oh, do do that.’

  Our talk made me a little wistful on my journey back—wistful on Raymond’s account. I had had only a few words with Margaret. She had sat at the foot of the table, away from me and directly after lunch she had gone up to the nursery, to relieve the village girl who came in for babysitting for a few hours every day. She had asked me about my plans, in a way that no one else had done. Most of my friends had assumed that a writer went back to his desk and picked up his pen where he had left it. ‘Won’t you find it difficult to begin again, to know what to write about and whom ?’