by Nevil Shute
He rang the bell; after a long time the door was opened to him by a young woman, plainly, rather dowdily dressed. He glanced at her, and knew from the likeness that he had come to the right house.
“Excuse me,” he said, “does Mrs Morgan live here?”
She looked him up and down, wondering what he wanted to sell. “She does,” she said. “What do you want?”
He hesitated. “It’s like this,” he said. “I met a man called Flying-Officer Morgan in the war, right back in 1943, and I was trying to get in touch with him again. Phillip Morgan, the name was. I went and asked at the Air Ministry and they told me this address.”
“I see,” she said. “You want my brother Phillip?” She did not seem to be particularly enthusiastic in the matter. She hesitated. “I think you’d better come in,” she said at last. She led him into the narrow hall, and showed him into the room on the right, which was the dining-room. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a few moments,” she said, “I’ll go and tell my mother.” She hesitated. “What’s the name?”
“Turner,” he said, “Captain Turner.” He had not the slightest right to use his military title, but that never worried him.
She left him, and he stood in the dining-room, hat in hand, staring round at the depressing scene. The room was furnished in the most doleful late Victorian style, with heavy mahogany furniture of an uninspiring design. On the walls there were engravings of the Stag at Bay and of a lion and of a collie dog with a Scots shepherd, all very genteel. On the black marble mantelpiece there was a black marble clock with tarnished gilt pillars, stopped at twenty-three minutes to eleven. On the table was a white linen cloth, slightly soiled, and such tablespoons and cruets as would be needed for the next meal and could be conveniently left on the table. Mr Turner thought nothing of it at all, in comparison with his cheerful little villa at Watford.
‘Fair gives you the creeps,’ he thought. And then he thought, as he waited minute after minute: ‘I bet something’s happened to him that they don’t want to talk about. She wasn’t a bit keen.’ The thought stiffened him to go through with the matter.
After a long ten minutes the girl came back. “Would you come upstairs and see my mother?” she said.
He went up with her to the first floor drawing-room usual in such tall old houses. It was furnished in the same Victorian style as the dining-room had been, with mahogany furniture and heavy plush curtains. Although the day was warm all the windows were closed and a small gas fire was burning at the grate. Seated in a chair before this was an invalid lady, not very old but soured and unpleasant.
The girl said: “This is Captain Turner, Mother, who wants to know about Phillip.”
Turner advanced jauntily into the room. He said: “Afternoon, Mrs Morgan. I used to know your son Phillip in the war, and I wanted to get in touch with him again, talk over the old days, and all that, you know.”
She said: “Sit down.” He sat down in a chair before her, and beamed at her expectantly, his hat upon his knee.
She said: “Did you know my boy well?”
“Not well. We were in hospital together.”
“Did you know his wife?”
Mr Turner knew thin ice when he saw it. “I never met her,” he said carefully. “From what he told me, she was a very lovely girl.”
She said vehemently: “He was a fool — oh, such a fool. But then, men are. They never know when they’re well off. Always running after someone new — even the lowest of the low, Captain Turner, even the lowest of the low. Joyce was very patient with him — nobody could have had a more angelic wife, perfectly angelic. But you can’t expect a girl like that to wait for ever. She has her pride, you know.”
“I suppose so,” said Mr Turner vaguely. “Can I get in touch with him? I’d kind of like to see him again.”
“If you met him now, after having held the King’s commission with him, you would be very disappointed, Captain Turner. A mother has a right to speak frankly about her son; you would be very disappointed that an officer and a gentleman could have fallen so low.”
The girl said: “Mother, don’t excite yourself.”
The invalid said: “No.” And then there was a long silence.
Mr Turner said: “Is he in London?”
His mother raised her head. “He is abroad, in Burma somewhere, I believe. We do not correspond with him. If I were you, I should forget about it, Captain Turner. My son has not had a very satisfactory life.”
He said: “I see.” If Morgan was in Burma there was not much point in going on with this. He said: “Well, I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs Morgan. I just kind of thought if he was round about we might have got together for a glass of beer or something.”
She said: “My son came home for a fortnight only, in 1945, and then went back to the East again. I am sorry that I cannot give you better news of him, but there it is.”
“Oh well, can’t be helped,” said Mr Turner. He got to his feet. “Sorry I troubled you, but it was just a thought I had, that he might have been about somewhere.”
He went downstairs escorted by the girl, leaving the invalid mother sitting over the gas fire in the sunlit room. As the girl opened the front door, he was glad to see the light and breathe fresh air after the close confinement of the house.
On the front steps, he turned to the girl. He was out of the house now, and had no further need for courtesy. “What did he do?” he asked bluntly.
The girl hesitated, and then said: “He left his wife, Captain Turner. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’d better know about it, in case you ever meet him. He just walked out, and left her, and went back to Burma.”
“He did?” said Turner. His first reaction was that Morgan had showed more pluck and initiative than he would quite have expected. “Well, these things happen to people,” he said. “Sometimes there are faults on both sides.”
She said quickly: “Oh, do you think that? Did you ever meet her?”
“I never did,” he said. “He showed me her photograph and he talked a lot about her in the hospital. I saw her once in a play, but only on the stage.”
She said: “It’s so difficult to find out things, living alone here, like we do. What did you think of her, Captain Turner?”
He was well out in the street by that time; after the constrained atmosphere of the house it was pleasant to speak freely in the clean, fresh air. “I thought she was the most bloody awful bitch God ever made,” he said. “She was giving him the hell of a time, though he wouldn’t admit it. He must have been crazy ever to have married her.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “You don’t think that?”
“I do think that, and a lot more,” he said.
She said: “But she was always so sweet with mother.”
“I dare say.” He thought for a moment. “Did your mother give her any money?” he inquired.
She stared at him. “However did you know about that? You’ve been talking to her, Captain Turner.”
“Never met her in my life,” he said, “and I don’t want to, either.”
They stood in silence for a moment. “I’ll walk down to the end of the street with you,” she said at last. They turned and walked along the pavement together. Presently she said: “You could write to my brother, if you want to, Captain Turner. He writes to me sometimes, and I write back. I don’t tell my mother, unless there’s anything very important, and that’s not often. It only upsets her.”
He stopped on the pavement in the sunlit street, and got out his notebook and pencil. “Where is he?” he asked.
“He’s living at a place called Mandinaung,” she said. “The address is Mandinaung, Irrawaddy, Burma. If you write a letter there, it will get to him all right.”
He replaced the notebook. “I got that,” he said. “You never know — I might be out there one day, and look him up.” For the moment he had forgotten that his future was not long.
She said: “Oh.” They walked in silence for a few paces.
“In that case, I think I ought to tell you something, Captain Turner. My brother — —” she stuck for a moment, and then said, “ — my brother’s living in rather a poor way, from what we can make out. He lives entirely with the natives, in this native village, Mandinaung. He is living with a native woman in a small palm shack, and he has two children by her. It practically broke my mother’s heart when we heard that.”
Mr Turner said quietly, “That’s a bad one,” and walked on in silence for a moment. This then was what happened to RAF pilots who could do nothing but fly aeroplanes. They drifted to the East and sunk to living with the natives, and were lost, submerged in the vast sea of colour. A word occurred to him. ‘Beachcombers,’ he thought. ‘That’s what he’d be, a beachcomber.’
At the corner of the street, she stopped, and held out her hand. “I’ll say goodbye,” she said. “Let me know if you hear anything of Phillip, will you? But don’t write to my mother, write to me.” She paused, and then she said: “We were good friends when we were children, and we are still, even after this.” She sighed. “Poor Phillip — he always made a mess of things if it were possible to do so.”
Mr Turner went back to his home at Watford by Underground for tea. He got there at about five o’clock, tired and depressed. Surprisingly, his wife was there and tea was laid for him.
“I thought that maybe you’d be back,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on — it won’t be long.” She paused, and then she said: “I got a kipper, if you’d like it.”
Kippers were his favourite delicacy; in his fatigue and his depression he felt that he could fancy a nice kipper. She cooked him two, and he ate them, and a slice of bread and jam, and two pieces of cherry cake, and drank three cups of tea, and felt a great deal better for it.
It was not his habit to discuss with his wife what he had been doing during the day; it was a long time since they had been upon such terms as that. While she gathered up the tea things and began washing up, he took a chair out in the garden and sat looking at the flowers and smoking, thinking intermittently of what he wanted to do.
He was rather shocked at what he had heard of Phillip Morgan. He had fully anticipated that the boy would not make a success of life, that he would drift into some little dead end job at four or five pounds a week; so much he was prepared for. He was not prepared to hear that he had gone completely native in a Burmese village, and he was distressed to hear it. Poverty in England in a little trivial job was one thing. Poverty in the Far East was quite another.
He stared at the flowers, and smoked cigarette after cigarette. This was what he had suspected, this was what he had set out to find. Of all the three who were in hospital with him in Penzance, Phillip Morgan had seemed least fitted for the battle of life. He had wanted to find out about him, in these last months of activity he had, in order that he might help, if help should be required. Help was required all right — the boy would get no help from his mother or his wife, and very little from his sister. There was some sort of a job to be done there — Mr Turner did not quite know what. The only thing was, Burma was such the hell of a long way away.
His wife came out to him presently, and brought another chair with her, and set it up beside him. “I went to the Commercial College and found out about courses,” she said quietly. “I could do six weeks shorthand and typing, and brush up the bookkeeping as well, for ten guineas. That’s mornings and afternoons too. The only thing is,” she said, “if I did that, I couldn’t get you dinner middle of the day.”
“I shan’t want that,” he said. “I should get on with it, while we’ve still got the salary coming in. Maybe after that you could get a job half time, kind of keep your hand in.”
“I believe I could do that,” she said thoughtfully. “Mornings only. It ‘ld make a bit more, too.”
She turned to him: “I been thinking about this,” she said. “Don’t you think you ought to see another doctor, or something? I mean, surely they can do something.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t think that way,” he said. “I mean, you can go on messing and messing about, and it don’t do no good. They done as well as anybody could for me. I’ve had it, and that’s all about it. I don’t want to go on arguing.”
She said: “Did you tell them at the office?”
He told her what had happened. “I got a month’s leave now,” he said. “After that, I suppose I go back to work, and then go on till I have to start and take sick leave. After that, I got six months on pay, and then finish.”
She said: “There’d be a war pension, or something.”
“So there would,” he said. “I better get Dr Worth to write a letter to the Board. Maybe you’ll get something out of it as well. I better see him in the morning.”
They sat together on the deckchairs in the narrow little strip of garden, and presently he was telling her about Phillip Morgan. “Well, that’s the way of it,” he said heavily at last. “He’s made a bloody muck o’ things, the way I knew he would. If he was in England I’d do what I could to see him, ‘n see if one could help. But out in Burma one can’t do that.”
She said quietly: “Why not?”
“Too bloody far away,” he said impatiently.
“I don’t see that,” she said. “You can fly out ever so quick, they say. Three or four days it is.”
He stared at her. “You mean, fly out to Burma?”
“That’s right,” she said. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if you want to go.”
He said ironically: “Don’t talk so soft. What d’you think it ‘ld cost?”
“I dunno, Jackie,” she said quietly. “But you’ve got the money.”
There was a long silence. It was true, he had enough money for anything that he was likely to require in his lifetime, though what he spent now would mean the less for her when he was dead. Actually, he had the time, too; he had a month’s holiday to run before he had to go back to the office. It was possible to go to Burma, if he wanted to, and as the thought occurred to him he knew that he wanted to go very badly.
His wife spoke again. “Look at it this way,” she said quietly. “I been thinking about things a lot. We neither of us had much fun since we got married, with the war and that. Well, I’ve got all my time to go, but you’ve only got a year, or maybe less than that. After you’re dead, if that must happen, I’d not like to think you never had no fun at all, travelling and seeing places and that. Why don’t you take a trip out there, and see if you can find him, Jackie? It’s what you’re interested in, and it won’t cost all that.”
“Me go to Burma?” he said thoughtfully.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I dunno,” he said.
There was another silence. He became resolved that he would go upon this trip. Whether he found Phillip Morgan or not, whether he could do anything for him if he did find him without encroaching further on the little store of money he could leave his wife, did not weigh greatly with Turner. He wanted to seize this opportunity to leave the office, and leave Watford, and go off to see new places, meet new people and to sort out his ideas. Abruptly, he was very conscious of the generosity of Mollie in making this suggestion.
“If I was to go,” he said, “would you come too?”
She shook her head. “I did think of that,” she said. “But I’d as soon stay here. I got to brush up at the College, ‘n it ‘ld all cost more. I’d like us to have a holiday together sometime, Devonshire or something. But Burma’s too far off.”
“Be a bit lonely for you, staying on here all alone,” he said.
“I dunno,” she replied. “I might go and stay with Laura for a bit. She wants help with the baby coming and all that.”
“Well,” he said, “it all wants a bit of thinking about.” He searched his mind for something he could do for her, to match her generosity in some small measure. “Like to go to the pictures tonight?” he said. “I see there’s Cary Grant on at the Regal.”
Four days later he left Poole upon
the flying boat for Rangoon.
CHAPTER 5
MR TURNER ENJOYED his journey in the flying boat. For practically the first time in his life comfort wrapped him round, so that it was unnecessary for him to do anything but read and rest. All day the aircraft droned on across the mountains, the deserts, and the seas; he read a little, slept a little, ate a lot, and looked out of the window at the slowly moving panorama of the world. The journey did him a great deal of good; the great wound in his forehead ceased to trouble him with its throbbing, and though he sweated profusely each time they landed, he reached Rangoon rested and refreshed.
He had not come empty handed. He brought with him from England a few small packages of Crispy Wheaties, a breakfast cereal that his organisation were marketing in a big way, and he brought some samples of an older product, Mornmeal, which was full of vitamins and roughage. With these gifts from the West to the Far East he landed in Rangoon early in August in monsoon weather, and went to the hotel upon the Strand.
He was adaptable, and though the climate in that month was trying with alternative rain and sun, he did not find it insupportable by any means. He had bought readymade clothing from a tropical outfitter in London and his suits were adequate. He was a man accustomed to fending for himself and finding his own way around; the Eastern atmosphere did not impede him. He behaved in Rangoon exactly as he would have done in Manchester, and he got along quite well.
He had an introduction to the agent for his firm, a Mr S. O. Chang; he rang him up from his hotel bedroom on the first morning, and within half an hour Mr Chang was sitting with him in the hotel lounge. Mr Chang was a Chinaman and had represented Cereal Products Ltd. for some years in Rangoon. In Rangoon Mr Chang had a finger in every pie that would accept his finger; he was always up to something. His interests ranged from upholstery materials for railway carriages to foundation creams for ladies, from cast-iron sluices suitable for septic tanks to breakfast cereals from England. He lived modestly in a small house up towards the jail behind the Chinese quarter; he may or may not have been wealthy, but he knew everybody in Rangoon.