‘Wasn’t Gracey qualified?’ Guy asked.
‘Too well qualified. That was the trouble. He wasn’t willing to work under Percy. No, he didn’t want to play second fiddle – he wanted Percy’s job. He went to see Cookson and buttered him up, and said: “You can see for yourself that Percy Brett isn’t fit to run the School,” and I can tell you there’s nothing Cookson likes better than to be in the middle of an intrigue. Those two began plotting and planning and telling everyone that Percy was too old and not trained for the work. And Gracey got Cookson to write to the London office …’
‘Do you really know all this?’ Alan Frewen mildly protested.
‘Oh, yes.’ Mrs Brett looked fiercely at him. ‘I’ve got my spies, too. And the next thing, the London office flew out an inspector to inquire into the running of the School. Just think of it! An inspector poking his nose into Percy’s affairs. … And then what do you think happened?’
Mrs Brett’s voice had become shrill in tragic inquiry, and as Alan Frewen caught Harriet’s eye, his pitying expression told her that Mrs Brett’s aggression covered nothing worse than unhappiness.
Sombre and weary, he dropped his gaze and Harriet, who had hoped to learn something about Gracey, began to wonder if they were listening to anything more than the fantasies of lunacy. Guy evidently thought so. His face pink with concern, he waited intently to know what happened next.
‘Percy fell ill,’ Mrs Brett said. ‘He fell ill just as the inspector arrived. Imagine what it was like for me with an inspector nosing around, and Gracey and Cookson telling him just anything they liked, and my poor Percy too ill to defend himself.
‘He said to me: “Girlie” – he always called me Girlie – “I never thought they’d treat me like this!” He’d worked like a Trojan, you know. Unremitting, I called him. He improved the School. All Gracey did was take over a going concern and let it run down. And poor Percy! He was ill for weeks; nine, ten weeks. … He had typhoid.’ She was gasping with the effort and emotion of the story, and her voice began losing its strength. ‘And they got rid of him. Yes, they got rid of him. A report was sent in and then a cable came: Gracey was to take over here; Percy was to go to a temporary job at Beirut. But he never knew any of this. He died. Yes he died you know!’ She looked at Guy and said hoarsely: ‘I blame myself.’ She clenched one of her ungainly hands and pressed the knuckles against her mouth, her eyes on Guy as though he alone understood what she was talking about. After some moments she dropped her hands to her lap. ‘He never wanted to come here. I made him. I worked it … yes, I worked it, really. I wrote and suggested Percy for the job, and that’s why it was offered to him. We lived at Kotor, you know. I got so tired of it. Those narrow streets, that awful gulf. I felt shut in. I wanted to go to a big city. Yes, it was me. It was my fault. I brought him here, and he got typhoid.’
Guy put his hand over her hand and said: ‘He could have got typhoid anywhere – even in England. Certainly anywhere on the Mediterranean. You’ve read Death in Venice?’
Mrs Brett looked at him bleakly, puzzled by the question, and to distract her he began telling her the story of Mann’s novella. Approaching the crisis of the plot, he paused dramatically and Mrs Brett, thinking he had finished or ought to have finished, broke in to say: ‘When Gracey took over, Percy was still alive. They didn’t even wait for him to die.’
Harriet asked: ‘Is this why the two lecturers asked to be transferred?’
‘You’ve heard about that, have you?’ Mrs Brett jerked round to look at Harriet: ‘I wonder who told you?’
‘Dubedat and Lush mentioned it.’
‘Them!’ said Mrs Brett in disgust: ‘They’re a pretty pair!’
‘They are a pretty pair,’ Harriet said, and she would have said more, but was interrupted by a loud rat-tat on the door.
‘Here she is! Here she is!’ Mrs Brett cried and jumping up with the alacrity of a child, she threw open the door so it crashed against the bed: ‘Come in! Come in!’ she shouted uproariously and a very large woman came in.
The woman’s size was increased by her white silk draperies and a cape which, caught in a draught between door and window, billowed behind her like a spinnaker. Her legs were in Turkish trousers, her great breasts jutted against a jerkin from which hung a yard of fringe. As she stood filling the middle of the room, her fat swayed around her like a barrel slung from her shoulders.
‘Well,’ she demanded. ‘Where do you want me to sit, Bretty?’
‘The arm-chair, the arm-chair.’ Delighted by the arrival of this new guest, Mrs Brett told the Pringles: ‘Miss Jay rules the English Colony.’
‘Do I?’ Miss Jay complacently asked. She sank into the arm-chair and looked down at her big raffia shoes.
When she had introduced the Pringles, Mrs Brett said: ‘I was just telling them how Gracey treated Percy.’
‘Um,’ said Miss Jay. ‘I thought I’d let you get that over before I turned up.’
‘I haven’t finished yet.’ Mrs Brett swung round on Guy: ‘And what do you think they did after Percy died?’
In an attempt to distract her, Alan Frewen said: ‘Could I have some more of that delicious tea?’
‘When the water comes, not before,’ said Mrs Brett and she continued with determined crossness: ‘After Percy died, I decided to give a little party … a little evening of remembrance. …’
The waiter came to the door with hot water. Mrs Brett took the pot from him, slammed the door in his face and added firmly: ‘A little evening of remembrance.’
Miss Jay said: ‘How about giving me a cup before you start again?’
Mrs Brett attended to her guests in an exasperated way, then, the tea dispensed, faced Guy again: ‘You understand why I’m telling you this, don’t you? I felt you ought to know something about the people who infest this lovely place. There’s not only Cookson and Gracey; there’s that Archie Callard, too.’
Alan Frewen said: ‘Archie can be tiresome. He has the wrong sort of sense of humour.’
‘Do you think what they did to me was intended as humour?’
‘I don’t know.’ Alan Frewen looked confused. ‘It could have been – of a macabre kind.’
‘Macabre? Yes, indeed, “macabre” is the word! What do you think they did?’ Mrs Brett turned on Guy: ‘When Cookson heard that I was giving my little party at the King George, he arranged to give a party himself on the same evening. A very grand party. What do you think of that? Of course they all had a hand in it: the Major, Callard and Gracey …’
Miss Jay said: ‘I really doubt whether Gracey …’
‘Oh, I’m sure he had. Three clever fellows plotting against a poor old woman! Everyone was invited to Cookson’s party – except me, of course. It was the biggest party Cookson’s ever given.’
‘And your party was spoilt?’ Guy asked.
‘I had no party. No one turned up. Some of my best friends deserted me in order to go to Phaleron. I’ve never spoken to them since.’
‘It really was most unkind,’ Alan Frewen murmured.
‘You weren’t here; you’d gone to Delphi,’ Mrs Brett exonerated him. ‘And you …’ she nodded to Miss Jay. ‘You were on Corfu.’ She smiled at the two who had not been in Athens to take part in her betrayal, then suddenly remembered Harriet and turned on her, asking: ‘What do you think of all this, eh? What do you think of the sort of people we’ve got here?’
Harriet, glancing aside, saw Miss Jay watching her with a keen, critical eye and knew that whatever she said would be repeated, probably with disapproval. She said: ‘I do not know them, and we’ve been living so differently. Our experiences didn’t give us much time to have social worries.’
‘You were lucky. I’d rather have experiences,’ said Mrs Brett. ‘We all envy you.’
Looking into her weathered old face, Harriet saw there a flicker of kindness, but Miss Jay said pettishly: ‘Experiences! Heaven keep us from experiences.’
‘The Pringles have just come from Buchares
t,’ Mrs Brett said. ‘They saw the Germans come in.’
‘Oh, did they!’ Miss Jay eyed the Pringles as though they might have brought the Germans with them. ‘We don’t want anything of that sort here.’
Alan Frewen, looking at Guy with interest, asked Guy how long he intended to stay.
Guy said: ‘As long as we can. But it depends on Gracey. I came here in the hope he would employ me.’
‘And won’t he?’ Frewen asked.
‘It doesn’t look like it. The trouble is, I can’t get him to see me. They say he’s too ill to see anyone.’
Mrs Brett broke in: ‘Whoever told you that?’
‘Toby Lush and Dubedat.’
‘How very odd!’ Alan Frewen looked at Mrs Brett, then at Miss Jay, his face crumpled like the face of a small boy trying to smile while being caned. ‘I don’t think there’s much wrong with Gracey, do you?’
‘It’s him all over,’ Mrs Brett said. ‘He can’t be bothered; he doesn’t want to be bothered. He leaves everything to those two louts. It’s disgraceful the way the School’s gone down.’
Still smiling his curious smile, Alan Frewen said: ‘I know Colin Gracey quite well. We were at King’s together. I could say a word …’
‘I wouldn’t interfere,’ Miss Jay interrupted with such decision that Frewen seemed to retreat. His smile disappeared and he looked so forlorn that Guy, whose hopes had been raised and then thrown down, felt it necessary to justify him.
‘I suppose we must leave it to Dubedat,’ Guy said. ‘After all, he is Gracey’s representative.’
Mrs Brett began to protest but Miss Jay had had enough of the conversation. Gripping her friend by the arm, she said: ‘I’ve heard about a flat that might suit you.’
‘No?’ Mrs Brett cried out in excitement; and Guy’s troubles were forgotten.
‘On Lycabettos. Two American girls have it at the moment. They’re going on the next boat. They’ll let it furnished. They’re looking for someone who’ll keep an eye on their bits and pieces, someone reliable. They’re not asking much for it.’
‘Suit me down to the ground.’
While Mrs Brett discussed the flat, Alan Frewen looked at his watch and Harriet raised a brow at Guy. The three rose. Miss Jay glanced at them brightly, glad to see them go, but Mrs Brett scarcely noticed their departure.
Frewen paused on the landing and looked at the Pringles as though he had something to say. When he said nothing, Guy decided to go down and ask at the desk if there was a message for him. They all descended the stairs together. At the bottom, a black retriever, tied to the banister post, leapt up in a furore of greeting.
At this, Frewen managed to break silence: ‘This is Diocletian.’ He untied the lead, then put on a pair of dark glasses preparatory to entering the twilit street, but he did not go. Holding his dog close, he stood with his face half obliterated by the black glass, and still could not say what he wanted to say.
Watching him, Harriet thought: ‘An enigmatic, secretive man.’
There was nothing for Guy at the desk and as the Pringles said their good-byes, Alan Frewen said at last: ‘Do you know the Academy? It used to be the American Academy of Classical Studies, but the Americans went home when the war started. Now it’s a pension for solitary chaps like me. I was wondering, could you find your way there one day and have tea?’
‘Why, yes,’ Guy said.
‘What about Thursday? It’s a working day but I’m not very busy. I needn’t get back to the office till six.’
‘What do you do?’ Harriet asked.
‘I’m the Information Officer.’
‘Yakimov’s boss?’
‘Yes, Yakimov’s boss.’ Alan Frewen gave his smiling grimace and, the invitation safely conveyed, he let the dog pull him away.
4
Harriet was usually wakened by the early tram-car. On Thursday morning she was wakened instead by a funeral wail which rose and fell, rose and fell, and at last brought even Guy out of sleep. Lifting his face from the pillow, he said: ‘What on earth is that?’
By now Harriet had remembered what it was. She had heard it on news films. It was an air-raid siren.
She put on her dressing-gown and went to the landing where the window overlooked the street. The shops were beginning to open and shopkeepers had come out to their doors. Men and girls going to work had stopped to speak to each other and everyone was making gestures of inquiry or alarm. People were running down the hotel stairs. Harriet wanted to ask what was happening, but no one gave her time. As the siren note sank and faded on a sob, a batch of police came running from the direction of the square. They were bawling as they came and some had taken out their revolvers and were waving them as though revolt were imminent. In a minute all the innocent, wondering bystanders had been pushed into shops and doorways. Cars were brought to a stop and their occupants sent indoors like the rest. The police sped on, making all possible noise, and leaving the street empty behind them.
It was a fine, mild morning. Harriet pulled up the window and leant out but saw only imprisoned faces, deserted pavements, abandoned cars.
Guy, getting into an emergency rig of trousers and pullover, shouted from the room: ‘Is anything happening down there?’
‘The police have cleared the street.’
‘It must be a raid.’
‘Let’s go down and find out.’ Harriet spoke with the calm of an old campaigner. Conditioned to disorder, she dressed with the sense that she was returning to reality, and when they ran down the stairs to the hall, she knew what to expect. She could have described the scene before she reached it, for she had seen it before on an evening of crisis in an hotel hall in Bucharest.
But here there was someone known to her. Mrs Brett, in a dressing-gown, her face flushed, was talking to everyone, her grey-brown pigtail whipping about as she jerked her head from side to side.
The porter was on the telephone, speaking Greek with occasional words of English, and his free hand was thumping the desk to emphasize what he said. The other guests, English, Polish, Russian and French, were chattering shrilly, while from outside there rose the high swell of the ‘All Clear’.
Seeing the Pringles, Mrs Brett shouted: ‘We’re at war. We’re at war.’ As she did so, the porter dropped the receiver on to the desk and throwing out his arms as though to embrace everyone in sight, said: ‘We are your allies. We fight beside you.’
‘Isn’t that splendid!’ said Mrs Brett.
The sense of splendour possessed the hall so it seemed that in secret everyone had been longing to live actively within the war and now felt fulfilment. The Pringles, because they were English, were congratulated by people who had not given them a glance before. They heard over and over again how the Greek Prime Minister had been wakened at three in the morning by the Italian Minister who said he had brought an ultimatum. ‘Can’t it wait till the honest light of day?’ Metaxas asked; then, seeing it was a demand that Greece accept Italian occupation, he at once, without an instant’s hesitation, said: ‘No.’
‘Oxi,’ said the porter. ‘He said “Oxi”.’
Mrs Brett explained that Mussolini also wanted his triumphs. He had chosen a small country, supposing a small country was a weak country, thinking he had only to make a demand and the Greeks would submit. But Metaxas had said ‘No’ and so, in the middle of the night, while the Athenians slept, Greece had entered the war.
‘Well, well, well!’ Mrs Brett sighed, exhausted by happiness and excitement, and turning accusingly on the Pringles, said: ‘You see, you’re not the only ones who have adventures. Things happen here, too.’ She started to go upstairs, then turned and shouted: ‘Anything yet from Gracey?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ said Guy.
‘Well, don’t go. You be like Metaxas. You stand firm. Tell him he’s got to give you a job. If I were on speaking terms, I’d tell him myself.’
Guy mentioned that they were going that afternoon to tea with Alan Frewen. Mrs Brett said she, too, had b
een invited but Miss Jay was taking her to see the promised flat.
‘You go,’ she urged Guy. ‘He’ll introduce you to Gracey.’
‘I don’t think so. He said nothing about Gracey.’
‘Oh, he will; Gracey’s up there. He lives at the Academy. Alan’ll do something – you’ll see! Cookson thinks he can fix everything, but he’s not the only fixer. A lot of things happen in my little room that he knows nothing about.’ Giving a high squawk of laughter, she shouted over her shoulder: ‘Oh yes, I’m a fixer, too.’
The Pringles had almost exhausted their money. They had just enough to pay their hotel bill and buy steerage berths on the boat that would sail on Saturday; but, caught up in the afflatus of events, they could not face the hotel breakfast and when ready to go out, decided to take coffee in the sunlight. The streets were crowded with people exchanging felicitations as though it were the first day of holiday rather than of war. It seemed an occasion for rejoicing until the Pringles met Yakimov, who was wheeling his bicycle uphill, a look of gloom lengthening his lofty camel face.
In the past he had gone through every crisis with the optimism of the uninformed. Now, working in the Information Office, nothing was hidden from him.
‘Greeks won’t last ten days,’ he said.
‘Is it as bad at that?’ Guy asked.
‘Worse. No army. No air-force. Only one ship to speak of. And the I-ties say they’ll bomb us flat. What’s going to happen to us, I’d like to know? They starve you in these prison-camps.’
‘Surely we’ll be evacuated?’ Harriet said.
‘Don’t know. Can’t say. All depends.’
Having reached the level of University Street, he ran his bicycle along, leapt at it, somehow landed on the saddle and, high perched in precarious dignity, he weaved away.
The Pringles, knowing Yakimov, could not rely on anything he said. They bought the English newspaper, which took an inspiriting view of the new front and made much of the fact the British had promised aid.
Harriet said: ‘Whatever happens, I want to stay. Don’t you?’ She felt confident of his answer and was dismayed when he replied: ‘I want to stay more than ever, but …’
The Balkan Trilogy Page 72