The Soldier's Art

by Anthony Powell

  “Bijou Ardglass’s fortieth birthday.”

  “Makes you think.”

  “I only knew her by sight, but even so – and Priscilla will be there?”

  “Bijou found her at Aunt Molly’s. Of course Priscilla told Bijou I was on the East Coast. I was when we last exchanged letters. I explained to Bijou I’d just been posted to London at short notice – which was quite true – and hadn’t managed to get together with Priscilla yet.”

  “You haven’t called up Priscilla at the Jeavonses’?”

  “I thought it would be best if we met at Bijou’s party – without Priscilla knowing I was going to be there. I have a reason for that. The Madrid was the place we celebrated our engagement. The Madrid might also be the place where we straightened things out.”

  That was just like Lovell. Everything had to be staged. Perhaps he was right, and everything does have to be staged. That is a system that can at least be argued as the best. At any rate, people must run their lives on their own terms.

  “I mean it’s worth making an effort to patch things up,” he said, “don’t you think, Nick?”

  He asked the question as if he had no idea what the answer would be, possibly even expecting a negative rather than affirmative one.

  “Yes, of course – every possible effort.”

  “You can imagine what all this is like going on in one’s head, round and round for ever, while you’re trying to sort out a lot of bloody stuff about radios and landing-craft. For instance, if she goes off with Stevens, think of all the negotiations about Caroline, all that kind of thing.”

  “Chips – Hugh Moreland has appeared at the door on the other side of the room. Is there anything else you want to say that’s urgent?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got it all off my chest now. That was what I needed. You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “The point is, you agree it’s worth taking trouble to get on an even keel again?”

  “Can’t say it too strongly.”

  Lovell nodded several times.

  “And you’ll be my executor?”

  “Honoured.”

  “I’ll write to the solicitors then. Marvellous to have got that fixed. Hallo, Hugh, how are you? Ages since we met.”

  Dressed in his familiar old blue suit, looking more than ever as if he made a practice of sleeping in it, dark grey shirt and crimson tie, Moreland, hatless, seemed an improbable survival from pre-war life. He was flushed and breathing rather hard. This gave the impression of poorish health. His face, his whole person, was thinner. The flush increased when he recognised Lovell, who must at once have recalled thoughts of Priscilla. Even after this redness had died down, a certain discoloration of the skin remained, increasing the suggestion that Moreland was not well. There was a moment of awkwardness, in spite of Lovell’s immediate display of satisfaction that they should have met again. This was chiefly because Moreland seemed unwilling to commit himself by sitting at our table; an old habit of his, one of those characteristic postponements of action for which he was always laughing at himself, like his constitutional inability in all circumstances to decide from a menu what he wanted to eat.

  “I shall be taken for a spy if I sit with you both,” he said. “Somehow I never expected you’d really be wearing uniform, Nick, even though I knew you were in the army. I must tell you of rather a menacing thing that happened the other day. Norman Chandler appeared on my doorstep to hear the latest musical gossip. He’s also become an officer, and we went off to get some lunch at Foppa’s, where neither of us had been since the beginning of the war. The downstairs room was shut, because the window had been broken by a bomb, so we went upstairs, where the club used to be. There we found a couple of seedy-looking characters who said the restaurant was closed. We asked where Foppa was to be found. They said they didn’t know. They weren’t at all friendly. Positively disagreeable. Then I suddenly grasped they thought we were after Foppa for being an Italian – wanted to intern him or something. An army type and a member of the Special Branch. It was obvious as soon as one thought of it.”

  “The Special Branch must have changed a lot if they now dress like you, Hugh.”

  “Not more than army officers, if they now look like Norman.”

  “Anyway, take a seat,” said Lovell. “What are you going to drink? How’s your war been going, Hugh? Not drearier than mine, I feel sure, if you’ll excuse the self-pity.”

  Moreland laughed, now more at ease after telling the story about Chandler and himself; Foppa’s restaurant, even if closed, providing a kind of frame to unite the three of us.

  “I seem to have neutralised the death-wish for the moment,” he said. “Raids are a great help in that. I was also momentarily cheered just now by finding the man with the peg-leg and patch over one eye still going. He was behind the London Pavilion this evening, playing ‘Softly Awakes My Heart’. Rather an individual version. One of the worst features of the war is the dearth of itinerant musicians, indeed of vagrants generally. For example, I haven’t seen the cantatrice on crutches for years. As I seem equally unfitted for warlike duties, I’d thought of filling the gap and becoming a street musician myself. Unfortunately, I’m such a poor executant.”

  “There’s a former music critic in our Public Relations branch,” said Lovell. “He says the great thing for musicians now is the R.A.F. band.”

  “Doubt if they’d take me,” said Moreland, “though the idea of massed orchestras of drum and fife soaring across the sky is attractive. Which is your P.R. man’s paper?”

  Lovell mentioned the name of the critic, who turned out to be an admirer of Moreland’s work. The two of them began to discuss musical matters, of which Lovell possessed a smattering, anyway as far as personalities were concerned, from days of helping to write a column. No one could have guessed from Lovell’s manner that inwardly he was in a state of great disturbance. On the contrary, it was Moreland who, after a preliminary burst of talkativeness, reverted to an earlier uneasiness of manner. Something was on his mind. He kept shifting about in his seat, looking towards the door of the restaurant, as if expecting an arrival that might not be exactly welcome. This apparent nervousness brought to mind the unaccustomed tone of his postcard. It looked as if something had happened, which he lacked the will to explain.

  “Are you dining with us?” he suddenly asked Lovell.

  There was no reason why that enquiry should not be made. The tone was perfectly friendly. All the same, a touch of abruptness added to this sense of apprehension.

  “Chips is going to the Madrid – I didn’t realise places like that still functioned.”

  “Not many of them do,” said Lovell. “In any case I’m never asked to them. I’ve no doubt it will be a very sober affair compared with the old days. The only thing to be said is that Max Pilgrim is doing a revival of some of his old songs – ’Tess of Le Touquet,’ ‘Heather, Heather, she’s under the weather,’ all those.”

  “Max is our lodger now,” said Moreland unexpectedly. “He may be looking in here later after his act. He’s been with E.N.S.A. entertaining the forces – by his own account enjoying a spot of entertainment himself – and has been released to do this brief season at the Madrid as a kind of rest.”

  I was curious to know who was included when Moreland spoke of “our” lodger. A question on this subject might be more tactfully put after Lovell’s withdrawal. It sounded as if someone had taken Matilda’s place. Lovell spoke a word or two about the party ahead of him. He seemed unwilling to leave us.

  “I’ve never been to the Madrid as a client,” said Moreland. “I once went there years ago, so to speak to the stage door, to collect Max after his act, because we were having supper together. I remember his talking about your friend Bijou Ardglass then. Wasn’t she mistress of some Balkan royalty?”

  “Theodoric,” said Lovell, “but they can’t have met for years. That Scandinavian princess he married keeps Theodoric very much in order. They were both lucky to get awa
y when they did. He’s always been very pro-British and would have been in a bad way had the Germans got him when they overran the country. There’s a small contingent of his own people over here now. They were training in France when the war came, and crossed at the time of Dunkirk. I say, I hope there’ll be something to drink to-night. The wine outlook becomes increasingly desperate since France went. One didn’t expect to have to fight a war on an occasional half-pint of bitter, and lucky if you find that. Well, it’s been nice seeing you both. I’ll keep in touch, Nick, about those various points.”

  We said good-bye to him. Lovell left for the Madrid. Moreland showed signs of relief that he was no longer with us. At first I thought this was still, as it were, on account of Priscilla; or, like some people – amongst whom several of his own relations were included – he simply found Lovell’s company tedious. As it turned out, both possibilities were incorrect. Quite another matter was on Moreland’s mind. This was only revealed when I suggested it was time to order dinner. Moreland hesitated,

  “Do you mind if we wait a minute or two longer?” he said. “Audrey thought she’d probably get away in time to join us for some food.”

  “Audrey who?”

  “Audrey Maclintick – you know her.” He spoke sharply, as if the question had been a silly one to ask.

  “Maclintick’s wife – the one who went off with the violinist?”

  “Yes – Maclintick’s widow, rather. I always assume everyone is familiar with the rough outlines of my own life, such as they are. I suppose, as a gallant soldier, you live rather out of the world of rank and fashion. Audrey and I are running steady now.”

  “Under the same roof?”

  “In my old flat. I found I could get back there, owing to the blitz and it being left empty, so took the opportunity to move in again.”

  “And Max Pilgrim is your lodger?”

  “Has been for some months.”

  Moreland had been embarrassed by having to explain so specifically that he was now living with Mrs. Maclintick, but seemed glad this fact was made plain. There had been no avoiding a pointblank enquiry about the situation; nor was all surprise possible to conceal. He must certainly have been conscious that, to any friend not already aware he and Mrs. Maclintick had begun to see each other frequently, the news must come as an incalculable reversal of former circumstances and feelings.

  “Life became rather impossible after Matilda left me,” he said. He spoke almost apologetically, at the same time seemed to find relief in expressing how the present situation had come about. The statement that life for him had become “impossible” after Matilda’s departure was easy to believe. Without Matilda, the organisation of Moreland’s day was hard to imagine. Formerly she had arranged almost all the routine of those affairs not immediately dictated by his profession. In that respect, unless she had greatly changed, Mrs. Maclintick could hardly be proving an adequate substitute. On the one or two occasions when, in the past, I had myself encountered Mrs. Maclintick, she had appeared to me, without qualification, as one of the least sympathetic of women. So far as that went, in those days she had been in the habit of showing towards Moreland himself sentiments not much short of active dislike. He had been no better disposed to her, though, as an old friend of Maclintick’s, always doing his best to keep the peace between them as husband and wife. When she had left Maclintick for Carolo, Moreland’s sympathies were certainly on Maclintick’s side. In short, this was another of war’s violent readjustments; possibly to be revealed under close investigation as more logical than might appear at first sight. Indeed, as Moreland began to expand the story, as so often happens, the unthinkable took on the authoritative tone of something that had to be.

  “After Audrey bolted with Carolo, they kept company till the beginning of the war – surprising in a way, knowing them both, it went on so long. Then he left her for a girl in a repertory company. Audrey remained on her 0wn. She was working in a canteen when we ran across each other – still is. She’s coming on from there to-night.”

  “I never heard a word about you and her.”

  “We don’t get on too badly,” said Moreland. “I haven’t been specially well lately. That bloody lung. Audrey’s been very good about looking after me.”

  He still seemed to feel further explanation, or excuse, was required; at the same time he was equally anxious not to appear dissatisfied with the new alignment.

  “Maclintick doing himself in shook me up horribly,” he said. “Of course, there can be no doubt Audrey was partly to blame for that, leaving him flat as she did. All the same, she was fond of Maclintick in her way. She often talks of him. You know you get to a stage, especially in wartime, when it’s a relief to hear familiar things talked about, whatever they are, and whoever’s saying them. You don’t care what line the conversation takes apart from that. For instance, Maclintick’s unreadable book on musical theory he was writing. It was never finished by him, much less published. His last night alive, as a final gesture against the world, Maclintick tore the manuscript into small pieces and stopped up the lavatory with it. That was just before he turned the gas on. You’d be surprised how much Audrey knows about what Maclintick said in that book – on the technical side, I mean, which she’s no training in or taste for. In an odd way, I like knowing about all that. It’s almost as if Maclintick’s still about – though if he were, of course, I shouldn’t be living with Audrey. Here she is, anyway.”

  Mrs. Maclintick was moving between the tables, making in our direction. She wore a three-quarter length coat over trousers, a rather notably inelegant form of female dress popular at that moment in circumstances where no formality was required. I remembered that Gypsy Jones – La Passionaria of Hendon Central, as Moreland himself had called her – had heralded in her own person the advent of this mode, when Widmerpool and I had seen her addressing a Communist anti-war meeting from a soapbox at a street corner. The clothes increased Mrs. Maclintick’s own air of being a gipsy, one in fact, rather than just in name. Moreland’s nostalgia for vagrancy was recalled, too, by her appearance, which immediately suggested telling fortunes if her palm was crossed with silver, selling clothes-pegs, or engaging in any other traditional Romany activity. By way of contrast with this physical exterior, she entirely lacked any of the ingratiating manner commonly associated with the gipsy’s role. Small, wiry, aggressive, she looked as ready as ever for a row, her bright black eyes and unsmiling countenance confronting a world from which perpetual hostility was not merely potential, but presumptive. Attack, she made clear, would be met with counter-attack. However, in spite of this embattled appearance, discouraging to anyone who had ever witnessed her having a row with Maclintick, she seemed disposed at this particular moment to make herself agreeable; more agreeable, at any rate, than on earlier occasions when we had run across each other.

  “Moreland told me you would be here,” she said. “We don’t get out to this sort of place much nowadays – can’t afford it – but when we do we’re glad to meet friends.”

  She spoke as if I had a trifle blatantly imposed myself on a party of their own, rather than herself converged on a meeting specially arranged between Moreland and myself. At the same time her tone was not antagonistic; indeed, by her pre-war standards, in as much as I knew them, it was positively amiable. It occurred to me she perhaps saw her association with Moreland as a kind of revenge on Maclintick, who had so greatly valued him as a friend. Now, Maclintick was underground and Moreland belonged to her. Moreland himself, whose earlier state of nerves had certainly been provoked by the prospect of having to present himself and Mrs, Maclintick as a ménage, now looked relieved, the immediate impact manoeuvred without disaster. Characteristically, he began to embark on one of those dissertations about life in which he was habitually inclined to indulge after some awkwardness had arisen. It had been just the same when he used to feel with Matilda that the ice was thin for conversational skating and would deliberately switch from the particular to the general.

>   “Since war prevents any serious work,” he said, “I have been trying to think out a few things. Make my lymphatic brain function a little. All part of my retreat from perfectionism. Besides, one really must hold one or two firm opinions on matters before one’s forty – a doom about to descend before any of us know where we are. I find war clears the mind in a few respects. At least that can be said for it.”

  I was reminded how Stringham, too, had remarked that he was thinking things out, though it was hard to decide whether “perfectionism” played much part in Stringham’s problems. Perhaps it did. That was one explanation. In Moreland’s case, there could be no doubt Mrs. Maclintick herself was an element in this retreat. In her case, indeed, so far as Moreland was concerned, withdrawal from perfectionism had been so unphased as to constitute an operation reasonably to be designated a rout. Perhaps Mrs. Maclintick herself, even if the awareness remained undefined in her mind, felt she must be regarded as implicit in this advertised new approach – therefore some sort of protest should be made – because, although she spoke without savagery, her next words were undoubtedly a call to order.

  “The war doesn’t seem to clear your mind quite enough, Moreland,” she said. “I only wish it stopped you dreaming a bit. Guess where that lost ration card of yours turned up, after I’d looked for it up hill and down dale. In the toilet. Better than nowhere, I suppose. Saved me from standing in a queue at the Town Hall for a couple of hours to get you another one – and when was I going to find time for that, I wonder.”

  She might have been addressing a child. Since she herself had never given birth – had, I remembered, expressed active objection to being burdened with offspring – Moreland may to some extent have occupied a child’s role in her eyes; possibly even in her needs, something she had sought in Maclintick and never found. Moreland, so far as it went, seemed to accept this status, receiving the complaint with a laugh, though no denial of its justice.

  “I must have dropped it there before fire-watching,” he said. “How bored one gets on those nights. It’s almost worse if there isn’t a raid. I began to plan a work, last time, called The Fire-watcher’s March, drums, you know, perhaps triangle and oboe. I was feeling particularly fed up that night, not just displeased with the war, or certain social or political conditions from which one suffers, but tired of the whole thing. That is one of the conceptions most difficult for stupid people to grasp. They always suppose some ponderable alteration will make the human condition more bearable. The only hope of survival is the realisation that no such thing could possibly happen.”