The World in Winter

  Torbock produced his wallet. From a mass of papers, receipted bills, documents and such, he produced an envelope and gave it to Madeleine.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  She looked at the envelope for a moment without opening it. Andrew, as a distraction, said to Torbock:

  ‘What do you think of our view?’

  Torbock levered himself up out of the chair again, and walked across to the window, Andrew following him.

  ‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘Especially if you like sea. I’m for the mountains myself. I lift up mine eyes to the hills, and all that. But that’s a very nice stretch of ocean you have. Not an ice-floe in sight.’

  Madeleine said: ‘You’d better see this, Andy.’

  Her voice was quiet and controlled, but he saw the tenseness in her face as she held the letter out to him. He took it and read it.

  Dear Maddie,

  Peter Torbock has kindly undertaken to get this through to you without benefit of censorship. I think this renders him liable to summary execution or something, so be discreet. You won’t need to be for long, because the last balloon of the present emergency is due to go up quite soon. Anyway, I wanted to get a straightforward letter to you while there’s chance.

  The plain fact, Maddie, is that I’ve decided to opt out of the exodus. There’s nothing heroic in this: I’ve just decided that I’d rather stay here. Things are going to be very difficult, but I don’t think they will be impossible. I’ve learned a few things over the past months which I expect to stand me in good stead. And you know how lazy and difficult I am about new things. Long after I became a prefect, long after I left school, I used to have bad dreams about becoming a fag again. I still do.

  It relieves my mind a lot to know that you have all made the grade out there, despite the initial setbacks. Andy is a very good type, and I couldn’t want you to be in better hands. Give Carol my regards if you run across her: that all seems very long ago now.

  I cheated you to some extent in saying I would be coming out myself eventually. I know you’ll forgive this, as you’ve forgiven all my other cheating in the past. And it’s all worked out for the best, hasn’t it?

  All the best to Andy. Love,

  David

  While he was still looking at it, Madeleine said to Torbock:

  ‘You have some idea of what’s in the letter?’

  ‘Fairly roughly. I take it he’s breaking the news that he’s decided to stay on there.’

  ‘He talks about the last balloon going up.’

  Torbock nodded, and hissed out breath through clenched teeth. ‘The airport’s closing down shortly. The Government’s moving out, to the West Indies. Other big bods are heading in different directions south.’

  ‘And the rest,’ Andrew asked, ‘the ones left behind?’

  ‘They’ll have to manage as best they can.’ Torbock added quickly: ‘The bright ones like old David will be all right.’

  ‘How soon?’ Madeleine asked. Torbock looked at her. ‘How soon does the airport close?’

  ‘I’m going back there tomorrow,’ Torbock said. ‘It’s a dicey situation. Even as a pilot, I’m expendable.’

  She said in a dull voice: ‘Of course. I can see you have to be careful.’

  Torbock finished his drink, and Andrew poured him another. He watched with interest and with no demur as the liquor mounted in the glass.

  ‘Very soon,’ he said as he took the glass. ‘I think I can say that I don’t expect to be returning to this particular oasis of culture.’

  ‘But you’re not staying in England yourself?’

  Torbock shook his head. ‘No. But I’ve managed to swing myself on to the Cape Town run. That’s where I aim to settle.’

  ‘What makes you choose the Union?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘I’m white,’ Torbock said. ‘I’ve seen the way the whites are being kicked around in the rest of Africa. Even those who’ve managed to sneak into the higher echelons have to box clever.’ He grinned. ‘No offence meant. And I’ve no qualifications. The intake is strictly black as far as Nigerian Airways is concerned. And Ghana Airways, and all the other Airways. It may be tough in South Africa, but I’ve more chance of winding up as something better than a lavatory attendant.’

  He was shrewder, Andrew reflected, than he looked. He said:

  ‘There’s pretty certain to be a war, you know. And the South African whites are pretty heavily outnumbered, even in their own territory.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that one, too. Numbers aren’t everything. And even if they were …’ He shrugged. ‘My wife died a few years back. No children. I’ve no dependants I’m bothered about. If there is going to be a war, I’d rather be fighting with my own side. And I’d rather be fighting, if you get me. Even at my age I stand a chance of getting behind a stick in South Africa. They’ll want men.’

  ‘Try and miss this block,’ Andrew said.

  ‘I’ll aim on it,’ Torbock said gravely. ‘That’s the one sure way I know of keeping any place safe.’

  ‘Another drink?’

  Torbock shook his head. ‘Not now. I’m meeting someone for lunch. Nice to have met you folks.’ He glanced at Madeleine. ‘Any message to take back?’

  ‘Can I deliver it later? You’re not going back till tomorrow?’

  ‘Crack of dawn. Seven a.m. take-off. Till then I’m staying at the Sheraton.’

  ‘I’ll let you have it there,’ Madeleine said. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  ‘No trouble,’ Torbock said. ‘Glad to help.’

  Andrew saw Torbock out of the flat. Torbock nodded in appreciation of the automatic lift.

  ‘You live in style here,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong about the South Africa business. I think I’d settle for Lagos if I thought I could make it.’

  ‘Good luck, anyway,’ Andrew said. ‘At any rate, if the worst happens you’ll still be in a wine-growing country.’

  ‘Don’t go for it,’ Torbock said. ‘I’m a beer man. Remember Charrington’s bitter? Sometimes I wake at night in a cold sweat, realizing I’ll never drink it again.’

  ‘It’s a bad world to brood in. Good-bye, Peter.’

  ‘Bye, Andy.’

  When he returned, Madeleine was tidying up the room. The activity, he suspected, was a defence against intimacy; but something had to be said. He poured himself a drink while he thought about this. At last, he said:

  ‘He will be all right, you know.’

  She did not answer at once. She arranged flowers in a vase: large brilliant tropical blooms of which he still did not know the name. Over her shoulder, she said:

  ‘There was nothing for him to come out for, was there? No one. Carol had gone her own ways. And he knew I was in good hands.’

  He saw what she meant: if her letters to David had been less cool, if she had shown him she still wanted him, that might have brought him out here. He said:

  ‘I don’t think he made the decision on those grounds.’

  ‘Then on what?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do we make our decisions on? Bits and pieces of motive. Pride, uncertainty, fear of running risks.’

  ‘And there are no risks there? Can’t you imagine what’s going to happen when order breaks down?’

  ‘A different kind of risk. He’s a very proud man, isn’t he?’

  She stared at the flowers without touching them. ‘Yes, a very proud man.’

  ‘At least, you know,’ Andrew said. ‘And know it’s his own choice. Certainty is the important thing. Once one knows something beyond doubt, one can accept it.’

  She turned towards him and, after a moment, smiled.

  ‘Yes, that’s true. The worst is being unsure.’

  ‘Are you writing back to him?’

  ‘I think so. Yes. A little later, when I’ve had time to think.’

  He patted the place beside him on the sofa, and she came and sat down. She dropped her head in the hollow of his shoulder. He put a hand against her neck.

&
nbsp; ‘One thing I want to say.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘There’s some satisfaction that he’s not coming out. No, relief’s a better word. I’m not going to pretend about that. But I wish he had come, despite everything. Do you believe that?’

  She moved away from him, and he thought he had offended her. He looked down and saw that her eyes were fixed on his face, her expression serious but not angry.

  She said: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever liked another person as much as I like you, Andy.’

  ‘It’s something,’ he said. He smiled. ‘In fact, it’s quite a lot. Anyway, it will have to do.’

  Her eyes searched his, but she said nothing. Then she put her face up for him to kiss her.

  A small noise awoke Andrew in the night. He looked towards Madeleine’s bed and saw that she was standing beside it, her body white in the moonlight that came through the net curtains. He said to her:

  ‘What is it?’

  She came to him. ‘Nothing. I’m just restless.’

  ‘Come in here.’

  ‘I’m going to the kitchen to make myself a drink. Go to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  She pushed him down gently. ‘No point in two people being awake.’ Her lips brushed softly against his face. ‘Be good, and go to sleep.’

  ‘My mother used to say that,’ he said.

  ‘I know. You told me.’

  He watched her, already almost asleep, as she went quietly out of the room. It was quite light when he awoke again. He saw that her bed was empty, and looked at his watch. It was half past seven, and he knew at once, with a clarity that was like a gout of pain, what had happened; and that it was too late.

  She had left her note on the coffee table in the sitting room, pinned down under the ivory gorilla they had bought together in the Idumagbo market. She had neat regular handwriting, a hand that concealed everything and told nothing.

  Darling –

  I’ve looked in on you from time to time. You’ve been sleeping peacefully, and still are. It’s a quarter past six, and as soon as I’ve written this I will be driving out to the airport. Even if you wake just as I’m leaving, and find this, I don’t think you could be there in time. Please, please don’t try. I shall leave the car at the airport, and you can pick it up when you like.

  Don’t think too hardly of Peter Torbock. He was very much against it, but he gave way in the end. I’m afraid I used pressure: threats and such. And he’s not coming back here anyway. He’s getting me on board at the last moment, as a hostess.

  Will you understand this? I think and hope you will. I couldn’t let him stay there on his own while there was a chance of getting back to him.

  Dearest Andy, I do wish there was time to tell you how grateful I am to you for everything, how fond I am of you, how much I’m going to miss you. I wish I could have told you all this, instead of leaving a note and sneaking away. But I felt you would have found some way of stopping me – you would, wouldn’t you? – for my own good.

  But I hate doing it this way, just as I hated deceiving you when you woke in the night. I wanted to come to you then. I wanted it very much.

  Please forgive me. The best of good fortune go with you – and my love always.

  Madeleine

  He read it through quickly, his eye darting down the page, at once searching and avoiding. Then he went out to the kitchen. The table was prepared for breakfast: fruit in the bowl, the coffee machine ready, bread in the toaster. But only one place set.

  He stared at all this for some time before going back to the sitting room. Then he read her letter through again, slowly and carefully.

  5

  Outside the New Moon Cabaret Café, at two o’clock in the morning, the winking neon cast regular patterns of light and shade on the ranks of parked bicycles, and on the relatively few cars that stood between the night-club and the waterfront. Across the lagoon gleamed the still brighter lights of the Marina. For the most part the well-to-do preferred the places that had sprung up there, on the island, or the clubs well outside the city on the Ibadan road. In this quarter things were noisier, more vigorous, more frequently violent, the prostitution more blatant, the criminals more petty and more conspicuous. The opposition newspapers campaigned, on and off, for a clean-up, but this was generally recognized as a formal exercise in piety.

  Andrew, who was half drunk, parked the car with exaggerated care, and waited for Abonitu to come round and let him out. The car was the Nigra Master, the smaller of the two models of the Nigerian-produced saloon, and of extremely flimsy construction. He had wrenched off the inside door handle on the driver’s side some days previously and had not yet got round to replacing it. He could have wound down the window but it seemed simpler to leave things to Abonitu.

  Inside the Fervid Four were beating out their usual brand of Dixieland. The combination was drums, two trumpets, and electrically amplified piano, and even without microphones the effect would have been savage in a room as small as this. The microphones, in fact, were working very efficiently. Andrew and Abonitu made for a table in the corner furthest from the music. The waiter, a scar-faced Dutchman, reached it as soon as they did.

  ‘Brandies,’ Andrew said. ‘Two, and large.’

  A couple of girls moved towards the table as the waiter left it; the blonde headed for Abonitu, the Negress for Andrew. He knew her slightly. Her name was Suzie for the purposes of her present life, and she was from the North – a Hausa and a Moslem. She came of quite a good family, and had been cast off for immorality. She was shrewd and intelligent, and although she had no great physical appeal for him he usually enjoyed her company. At present he was not in the mood for it.

  ‘You treating tonight, Andy boss?’ she asked him.

  He pushed a note across the table. ‘Go and buy yourself one, Suzie. We’re two tired men.’

  ‘That’s when you need the woman’s touch.’

  He shook his head. ‘Tomorrow night, maybe.’

  She grinned and left them, taking the blonde with her. The waiter brought their drinks over – service was prompt here – and Andrew rattled the ice in his glass.

  ‘The Albert Hall, Abo,’ he said, ‘coupled with the Albert Memorial.’

  Abonitu raised his glass solemnly. They had already toasted that night the Houses of Parliament, the Lyon’s Corner House at Tottenham Court Road, Nelson’s Column, the Chelsea Flower Show, the British Museum Reading Room, the King’s Road, Admiralty Arch, the Samuel Whitbread, Peter Pan’s statue, the Imperial War Museum, and Selfridges. The joke seemed less and less funny, but Andrew continued with it compulsively.

  ‘Handel’s Water Music turned to ice,’ Andrew said. ‘The Prince Consort’s fingers frozen to his copy of the Exhibition Catalogue.’

  Abonitu said: ‘I remember going to a Promenade Concert.’

  ‘They were déclassé in my circle.’

  ‘I walked across Hyde Park in a daze afterwards. The music, the excitement …’

  ‘The fellowship of the arts,’ Andrew said. ‘And no colour bar.’

  Abonitu smiled. ‘I worked that out, too. I do not deceive myself much, Andrew.’

  ‘Then you should acquire the habit. Man, you’ll never be happy without it.’

  ‘Physician, heal thyself.’

  ‘I’m winning,’ Andrew said. ‘One has one’s setbacks, but I’m winning.’

  ‘By drinking too much. You make it hard on your friends. Must I get cirrhosis to solve your emotional problems?’

  ‘Do you know a better solution?’

  Abonitu stared at him solemnly for a moment. ‘I have found one,’ he said. ‘In vino solvandum est. Is that good Latin?’

  ‘It would fool me. Come up with your solution, and let us expose it to the night air.’

  The noise of the jazz had been forcing them to speak quite loudly. Now as the number reached its crescendo and cut off there was comparative quiet. Abonitu’s voice sounded very loud:

  ‘Have you
heard about …’

  He stopped speaking and looked foolish. Andrew said:

  ‘About what?’

  In a much quieter voice, Abonitu went on: ‘About the expedition?’

  ‘No,’ Andrew said. He drank more brandy. ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘Tessili told me.’ Tessili was Abonitu’s uncle, Minister of Finance in the present Government. ‘It’s a hush-hush business, Andrew.’

  ‘They always are.’

  ‘No, this one really is. There could be trouble if it got out.’ He smiled wryly. ‘My entire family kicked out of their jobs at least. Their friends also.’

  ‘A good point. Perhaps you’d better keep it to yourself.’

  ‘No. I must explain to you the solution. We run the same risks, anyway, and for you the penalty would be heavier. You know that no governing authority exists in Europe north of the Mediterranean?’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘But the Council of African States has garrisons in two ports.’

  ‘Genoa and St Nazaire. I see the point in Genoa.’

  ‘St Nazaire is the most northerly port that is likely to remain relatively free of ice in winter. It offers the only year-round point of entry for northern Europe.’

  His head was fuzzy with drink, and beginning to ache from that and the empested atmosphere. The piano had begun to play again, quite softly, without the amplification. There was a little clapping, and some shouts of encouragement. The Cheltenham Trio were coming on. They were the speciality of the house, three red-headed European girls who stripped each other in a long-drawn routine involving both fighting and fondling. Despite the name, only one of them was English. Only one was a genuine red-head; the other two were dyed.

  ‘Why northern Europe,’ Andrew said, ‘why in God’s name northern Europe? Who wants a point of entry to a cemetery?’

  ‘There are enough reasons. The base is worth keeping. Eventually, when we have more resources, we may be able to do something there.’