‘Where?’
‘Here,’ she said, pointing to the tip of her nose. He kissed it. ‘Now here,’ she said, patting her right cheek, ‘and now here,’ patting the left. ‘Now it’s my turn to kiss you.’ She placed her mouth fully on his.
Quarter of an hour later, utterly enflamed, he said, ‘Do you really need that nightdress on?’
‘Do you really need those pyjamas?’
‘I’ll undress if you undress.’
‘You undress me, then I’ll undress you.’
He made her sit up, and pulled the nightdress over her head, exposing her small pointed breasts and flat belly. Her cheeks flushed, and she began to fumble with his buttons.
They lay wonderingly, their whole flesh in complete correspondence with another’s for the first time in their lives. The warmth, the smell, the textures, were strange, exciting and beautiful. He ran a finger softly down her spine, and she shivered.
Outside the gaslighter doused the street lamps. Their eyes glittered in the dark.
‘Shall we go to sleep now?’ he suggested mischievously. ‘We’ve got an early start if we want to get to Deauville.’
‘Oh drat,’ she said.
‘Thank God I’m alive,’ he said. ‘Thank God I made it through.’
‘Let’s not wait,’ she said.
In the morning, when they drew the curtains, a bright shaft of sunlight was thrown into the room, its colour pure and golden. Outside the sky was absolutely clear of cloud, and the whole town and the sea shimmered and wavered in a serene and perfect light. Sophie went to the window, naked as she was, and held out her arms so that the sunlight could bathe her body.
‘How beautiful you are,’ said Fairhead gratefully.
He went to the bathroom down the corridor, and when he returned quarter of an hour later, freshly shaven and smelling of cologne, he found Sophie in her nightdress and dressing gown, sitting by the window, apparently writing in the air with her forefinger. He stood behind her and saw that she was disturbing the tiny motes that sparkled in the bright shaft of sunlight.
‘Look at all the little shiny specks, swirling about,’ said Sophie. ‘Do you know what they are?’
‘Do you? What are they?’
‘They’re the dust that falls from dreams.’
‘The dust that falls from dreams,’ repeated Fairhead, his voice full of wonder. He was only just beginning the long journey towards the revelation that he had married a truly original and remarkable woman, and felt again a pang of gratitude and incredulity.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘This is the dust from last night’s dreams. I’m writing our names. I’m writing with my finger in the dust that falls from dreams.’
75
Archie’s Letter to Daniel
17 February 1920
Mon frère,
I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to get back on the boat. It’s clear to me that I don’t belong in England or even in France any more. I belong in the Hindu Kush, in Waziristan, in wild tribal places where the logic is so simple it doesn’t amount to any kind of logic at all, where there’s no morality, reason or decency, and there’s only custom, honour and religion. You know what it’s like, you’ve served there yourself. Didn’t we have a wild and wonderful time? Now I don’t suppose you’ll ever set foot there again.
I don’t honestly care very much about the Great Game. Of course, now that the Russians have gone Bolshevik, anything could happen. We’re in Afghanistan so the Russians can’t be, it’s as simple as that. It’s a game of dog in the bloody manger. That’s why we’re bogged down, dealing with people who aren’t like us and don’t want to be like us, and don’t know the difference between us and the Russians. We’re all just faranghi, and all they want is to settle back into their feuds and raids and poppy farming and stoning and tribal war. Killing and dying is all they live for, it seems to me, and we get in the way of their fun. But you know all this.
Well, it is just a great game, isn’t it? I’m not going back because I care about it. There’s something wrong with me, and I’m out there to get away from myself and the people I love. I don’t fit in at home. I’m unsuited. What would I do in Blighty or La Belle F in peacetime? Square-bashing? I’m not bright enough to start a business, and it wouldn’t interest me. Can’t understand why Hamilton McCosh finds it so fascinating. What else is there? A bloody schoolmaster, teaching French and history, and footling about with the CCF on Wednesday afternoons? I’d be thrashing the boys out of sheer bloody frustration.
No, brother, I’d rather die in Afghanistan for no good reason, and get buried on a hillside where the dogs can dig me up and leave my bones to bleach in the sun for the ants to work on.
I’ve often thought of writing my memoirs, but I lack the discipline. I have a great deal to pass on, a great many very wonderful stories about everything I’ve seen and done, but when I sit down with some foolscap and a fountain pen, all that happens is that I light a cigarette and go out for walk.
As you’re my brother, I can tell you all the things you already know, and you won’t hold it against me. Not very stiff upper lip, I agree, but to hell with it. I’ve got that Latin part in me that sometimes wants to let go.
I drink too much. Most of my brother officers do. We all do, don’t we? You told me about your heroic binges in the RFC. It must have been fun, and you must have drunk more in single evenings than I drink in a month, but the difference is, I need it and you don’t. One has to have a clear head to write memoirs. It’s no damned use being fuddled. You really ought to write yours one day. Everyone loves an air ace, and you’d be sure to make a few bob from it.
I envy you heading off into marriage and a cleaner life. No more finding comrades mutilated beyond recognition by Pathans, with their balls cut off and their mouth pissed in by the women. God help the faranghi who falls into the hands of the women. I know you used to keep a revolver in the cockpit in case of fire. Out there I never shoot the last round in my revolver before reloading. I count to five.
To think I’ve been out amongst those people for so long! But I do what soldiers do, I accept what can’t be helped. If I had my life again I’d probably do the same. I could have stayed in Blighty after the war. I had a good war, ended up in France just like you, got draped in medals, just like you, and now I’m a Commander of St Michael and St George, but I’m still going back to the North-West Frontier.
A man needs to get away from himself sometimes.
I want to speak to you frankly about Rosie, but it’s very difficult. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t blame you for loving and marrying her. I understand. I also know that she could not possibly have been happy with me, and I do believe most strongly that a man should not even consider marriage unless he can support a wife and children. Even so, one has dreams. It is very hard to endure the sight of them fluttering away like a flock of sparrows. It leaves a taste in the mouth like licking an old penny.
I have been thinking lately about our father. It’s such a pity that he was killed when we were still so young. I don’t think I will ever get over it. I thought I had, but I hadn’t, as I realised when I stood outside the house in Court Road and remembered my childhood.
He looked marvellously handsome in his uniform. I wish that maman had had a portrait made. He knew The Hunting of the Snark off by heart, and used to act it out for me. One doesn’t realise until rather too late how important one’s father is.
I remember Rosie when she was a baby. Lovely blue eyes, very innocent, and then she grew up sincere and sober, like a little Presbyterian. You can fall in love with a little girl when you’re an adolescent you know. You just wait til she grows up a bit, and there you are, equal at last except that she adored the American boy. A very fine fellow, probably deserved her a lot more than I did. Much nearer her own age too. I didn’t begrudge him, but I couldn’t switch, if you know what I mean. I never really looked at anyone else. So I joined the Indian Army and got seconded to the Frontier Scouts. I went as far awa
y as I could, and then you came out there too, which made everything so much more fun. And now you’re married to her after all, and I’m coming back out on my own.
Well, it doesn’t do for Frontier Scouts to have wives, does it? Women drag you down if you’re the kind of man who wants to camp in the rocks and hunt antelope and hide in nullahs, and get into firefights with Johnny Mahsud. You can’t take women to the frontier, can you? Do you remember that woman who got carried off and went native and didn’t even want to be saved? A rum one, that. Then someone bought her for one rifle. That’s what a woman’s worth. But Rosie is worth a whole world, mon frère, so do take proper care of her.
Did I tell you that last year we had a Pashtun recruit who got buggered by every man in his piquet? I told the Colonel that the boy was too damn pretty, and it started a whole six months of fights, and then a blood feud. Do you remember how we used to go out with binoculars, and there’d be Pashtuns buggering sheep and donkeys on every hillside? And the animals not giving a damn. I wanted to tell you about a song I heard called ‘The Wounded Heart’. Zakmi Dil. The song says: ‘There’s a boy across the river with a backside like a peach, but alas I cannot swim.’ I wonder what Rosie would think if she knew the world the way we know it. It seems to me that men have to keep the world secret from women, just so that they can go on living in a state of innocence. Come to think of it, being at Westminster was pretty good training for being on the North-West Frontier, wasn’t it?
Do you remember poor old Captain Bowring, who got shot by a sentry at Sarwekai because his bare feet were pointed at Mecca? I don’t suppose you were there in 1904, though. No, you would have been fifteen, and still at Westminster. The mind gets hazy after Bombay Sapphires. I was just thinking that what happened to him pretty much encapsulates the whole madness of the region. There were tribesmen outside shooting at the tower where the sentry was holed up, and the only choice was to storm the tower or starve the bugger out.
Everybody knew he had to be killed, but who was going to do it? Whoever did it would start a blood feud, and that might last for centuries. Anyway, it turned out that the man’s brother was there, and he agreed to do the execution, so he went to see his brother up in the tower, and the brother agreed to be shot fraternally. So he came up on the parapet and threw his rifle down, and he opened his arms wide, and he shouted ‘Allah o akbar’ because he knew he was sinless and had done the right thing, and then his brother shot him from down below. He stood still for a second and then whirled round and plunged down into the courtyard. That was the end of sepoy Kabul Khan. Another martyr for the Prophet. He was a Mahsud. Talk the hind legs off a donkey, those Mahsuds. Damned treacherous too. Can’t trust ’em an inch. Great fun to command, though. Splendid sense of humour. Nothing they like more than plaguing the political agent. Last year, one had the damned cheek to come and demand a campaign medal when he’d been on the other side, and wouldn’t give in until he’d got one, either.
Forgive me if I’ve already told you about Bowring. I’ll give your love to the sandflies and mosquitoes, the malaria and dysentery and sandfly fever, the scorpions in my shoes and under the lid of the thunderbox.
It was damn bad luck poor Rosie burning her hands like that, just before the wedding. I do hope she’s all right now.
It’s a pity I never fell for Ottilie. She’s such a sweet girl and I’m very fond of her, but how could I marry her? I’d always be looking over her shoulder at her sister. Every time I saw Rosie I’d get the same lurch.
I’d be a terrible husband. I shouldn’t inflict myself on anyone. Sorry about the stain on the right-hand side of the page. It’s Angostura bitters.
I’m married to the army and the Afghan hills. I pray to God to let me die there with a bullet through my heart, and I’ve told my brother officers I only want a cairn of stones.
I’ve had too many gins to write any more now. I’m in Port Said, and it’s as near to Hell as any man gets on earth. I’m going to seal this up and go ashore and post it, before I think any better of it.
I just wanted to tell you that if I die anywhere but in the Afghan hills, I’d like you to take my bones to Peshawar and bury them there.
God knows when I’ll be back, mon frère. If only one of us can be entirely happy, I’m content it should be you. All my love to you and Rosie. I’ll write to maman when I’m sober.
Archie, ever yours
76
Consummation
Daniel had become good at golf quite quickly, as ordered by Squadron Leader Maurice Beckenham-Gilbert, and had performed honourably in the match against the masters and senior pupils. He had also triumphed in the tennis tournament, producing some spectacular forehand volleys and backhand slices, whilst keeping the stub of a cigarette clamped firmly at all times between his lips, at dead centre. The squadron had taken more deliveries of some wonderfully jaunty Sopwith Snipes, the very plane in which Major W. G. Barker had won a Victoria Cross for engaging fifteen Fokker DV 11s just two weeks before the end of the war.
Daniel had been married only a month or two, and should have been radiant with happiness, as should Rosie.
Her sisters questioned her doggedly about her obvious sadness, and got nowhere. Mrs McCosh compounded the bad atmosphere by strongly disapproving of Rosie’s state of mind, and blaming Daniel for it whenever he was there. The golf club had mowed a special landing strip for him in the rough on a par five, and he would come by in whatever aircraft was available, once even turning up in a Morane-Saulnier parasol that had been all but obsolete even in 1915.
Daniel was sitting on his own on a bench at the edge of the playing field, smoking a cigarette. It was a lovely day with a light breeze, and seagulls were throwing themselves about overhead, apparently just for the fun of it.
Squadron Leader Maurice Beckenham-Smith was walking his two black setters around the pitch, and he stopped and sat next to Daniel.
‘Perfect day,’ he said.
‘Hmm,’ said Daniel.
‘You mean “Hmm, sir”,’ said Beckenham-Smith. ‘I’m in uniform with my cap on.’
Daniel laughed half-heartedly.
‘Down in the dumps?’ said Beckenham-Smith. ‘Not like you at all.’
‘You were right,’ said Daniel. ‘I should have paid attention. Now I’m scuppered. For life, no doubt.’
‘Tant pis,’ said Beckenham-Smith. ‘No joy?’
‘None.’
‘None whatsoever?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Gracious me! How long has it been?’
‘Six weeks, sir.’
‘Six weeks. Oh dear, that is too bad.’
‘She always has a good reason.’
‘Headache, tummy ache, earache, tired, indisposed, that kind of thing?’
‘That’s about the long and short of it, sir.’
‘Should have married a French girl. Or a dusky maiden. Oh for a dusky maiden!’
They sat together in silence, petting the ears of the dogs, and then the Squadron Leader said, ‘After a while you can get an annulment for that, you know. Non-consummation.’
‘I know, sir. It might be all I have to hope for. It’s very depressing.’
‘The ancient Greeks believed that the first human woman was created for the punishment of man. Let’s go up in a Snipe,’ said Beckenham-Gilbert.
The two men went up into the sky and blew their worries away high above the seagulls. They buzzed a courting couple in a field, and did a display of loops over Birchington-on-Sea. Then they landed on wet sand of low tide at Margate and were roundly ticked off by a policeman.
Fluke and Daniel left their aircraft on the strand, and went for a wander in the town. They had tea in the Lyons Corner House, and then noticed a small bookshop, which, in the window, had a copy of Eleanor Farjeon’s Sonnets and Poems. ‘I wonder if Rosie would like that,’ said Daniel. ‘She’s a great one for modern poetry.’
‘Don’t see the point of poetry,’ said Fluke. ‘Give me a song to bawl. Doesn’t
butter any parsnips, poetry, does it?’
‘It butters Rosie’s parsnips,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve seen a good poem make her cry. I sometimes wonder if she’s so religious just because the language of the Bible and the Prayer Book is so beautiful.’
Inside the shop Daniel took a look at the little book. It had a very pretty cover, and the first poem was striking. ‘Man cannot be a sophist to his heart…’ He read the second: ‘O spare me from the hand of niggard love…’
‘I’m going to get this,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m certain she’ll like it.’
‘I’ve found a tome about brook fishing for trout,’ said Fluke, brandishing it. ‘Don’t think I can resist it.’
At the weekend Rosie accepted the little book with surprise. Somehow she had not expected her husband to have regard for what interested her, and she realised guiltily that she had never bought him a spontaneous gift herself.
‘Doesn’t she mostly write for children?’ she asked, wondering if it was going to be at all enjoyable.
‘Some of them are for children,’ said Daniel. ‘The sonnets definitely aren’t.’
Rosie settled in the conservatory with Caractacus purring on her lap, and began to read the sonnets. The sun was shining weakly through the glass, and it was deliciously warm. She reached Sonnet XV, and read it over and over again. It spoke directly to her as if the poet were in the room, and she could see her deep, regretful eyes.
Farewell, you children that I might have borne,
Now must I put you from me year by year,
Now year by year the root of life be torn
Out of this womb to which you were so dear,
Now year by year the milky springs be dried
Within the sealed-up fountains of my breast,
Now year by year be to my arms denied
The burden they would break with and be blessed.
Sometimes I felt your lips and hands so close
I almost could have plucked you from the dark,
But now your very dream more distant grows