For the first time now the aridities of his official duty seemed almost delightful, almost enticing. Time-killers and pain-killers at once, he followed out the prescribed round of entertainments with a concentration and attention that made them seem almost a narcotic. Never had he radiated such calculated charm, such attentiveness to considered trifles which turned them into social endearments. A whole colony of bores began to seek him out. It was a little time before people began to notice how much and in how short a time he had been aged, and to attribute the change to the unceasing round of pleasure into which he cast himself with such ravenous enthusiasm. What irony! His popularity expanded around him in waves. But now it began to seem to him that there was little enough behind the handsome indolent mask which he exposed to the world save a terror and uncertainty which were entirely new. Cut off in this way from Leila, he felt dispossessed, orphaned. All that remained was the bitter drug of duties to which he held desperately.
Waking in the morning to the sound of his curtains being drawn by the butler — slowly and reverently as one might slide back the curtains of Juliet’s tomb — he would call for the papers and read them eagerly as he tackled a breakfast-tray loaded with the prescribed delicacies to which his life had made him accustomed.
But already he was impatient for the tapping on the door which would herald the appearance of his young bearded third secretary, bringing him his appointments book and other impedimenta of his work. He would hope frantically that the day would be a full one, and felt almost anguish on those rare occasions when there were few engagements to be met. As he lay back on his pillows with controlled impatience Donkin would read the day’s agenda in the manner of someone embarking on a formal recitation of the Creed. Dull as they always sounded, these official engagements, they rang in Mountolive’s ear with a note of promise, a prescription for boredom and unease. He listened like an anxious voluptuary to the voice reciting: ‘There is a call on Rahad Pasha at eleven to deliver an aide-memoire on investment by British subjects.
Chancery have the data. Then Sir John and Lady Gilliatt are coming to lunch. Errol met the plane. Yes, we sent the flowers to the hotel for her. They will sign the book at eleven today.
Their daughter is indisposed which rather mucked up the lunchseating, but as you already had Haida Pasha and the American Minister, I took the liberty of popping in Errol and wife; the placement works out like this. I didn’t need to consult protocol because Sir John is here on a private visit — this has been publicly announced in the Press.’ Laying down all the beautifully-typed memoranda on its stiff crested paper, Mountolive sighed and said
‘Is the new chef any good? You might send him to me later in my office. I know a favourite dish of the Gilliatts’.’ Donkin nodded and scribbled a note before continuing in his toneless voice: ‘At six there is a cocktail party for Sir John at Haida’s. You have accepted to dine at the Italian Embassy — a dinner in honour of Signor Maribor. It will be a tight fit.’
‘I shall change before’ said Mountolive thoughtfully.
‘There are also one or two notes here in your hand which I couldn’t quite decipher, sir. One mentions the Scent Bazaar, Persian Lilac’
‘Good, yes. I promised to take Lady Gilliatt. Arrange transport for the visit please, and let them know I am coming. After lunch — say, three-thirty.’
‘Then there is a note saying “Luncheon gifts”.’
‘Aha, yes’ said Mountolive, ‘I am becoming quite an oriental.
You see, Sir John may be most useful to us in London, at the Office, so I thought I would make his visit as memorable as possible, knowing his interests. Will you be good enough to go down to Karda in Suleiman Pasha and shop me a couple of those little copies of the Tel Al Aktar figurines, the coloured ones? I’d be most grateful. They are pretty toys. And see that they are wrapped with a card to put beside their plates? Thank you very much.’ Once more alone he sipped his tea and committed himself mentally to the crowded day which he saw stretching before him, rich in the promise of distractions which would leave no room for the more troubling self-questionings. He bathed and dressed slowly, deliberately, concentrating his mind on a choice of clothes suitable for his mid-morning official call, tying his tie carefully in the mirror. ‘I shall soon have to change my life radically’ he thought ‘or it will become completely empty. How best should that be done?’ Somewhere in the link of cause and effect he detected a hollow space which crystallized in his mind about the word
‘companionship’. He repeated it aloud to himself in the mirror.
Yes, there was where a lack lay. ‘I shall have to get myself a dog’ he thought, somewhat pathetically ‘to keep me company. It will be something to look after. I can take it for walks by the Nile.’ Then a sense of absurdity beset him and he smiled. Nevertheless, in the course of his customary tour of the Embassy offices that morning, he stuck his head into the Chancery and asked Errol very seriously what sort of dog would make a good house pet. They had a long and pleasurable discussion of the various breeds and decided that some sort of fox-terrier might be the most suitable pet for a bachelor. A fox-terrier! He repeated the words as he crossed the landing to visit the Service attaches, smiling at his own asininity. ‘What next!’ His secretary had neatly stacked his papers in their trays and placed the red despatch cases against the wall; the single bar of the electric fire kept the office at a tepid norm suitable for the routine work of the day. He settled to his telegrams with an exaggerated attention, and to the draft replies which had already been dictated by his team of juniors. He found himself chopping and changing phrases, inverting sentences here and there, adding marginalia; this was something new, for he had never had excessive zeal in the matter of official English and indeed dreaded the portentous circumlocutions which his own drafts had been forced to harbour when he himself had been a junior, under a Minister who fancied himself as a stylist — are there any exceptions in the Foreign Service? No. He had always been undemanding in this way, but now the forcible concentration with which he lived and worked had begun to bear fruit in a series of meddlesome pedantries which had begun mildly to irritate the diligent Errol and his staff. Though he knew this, nevertheless Mountolive persisted unshrinkingly; he criticized, quizzed and amended work which he knew to be well enough done already, working with the aid of the Unabridged Oxford Dictionary and a Skeat — for all the world like some medieval scholar splitting theological hairs. He would light a cheroot and smoke thoughtfully as he jotted and scored on the marbled minute-paper.
Today at ten there came the customary welcome clinking of cups and saucers and Bohn, the Chancery Guard, presented himself somewhat precariously with the cup of Bovril and a plate of rusks to announce a welcome interval for refreshment. Mountolive relaxed in an armchair for a quarter of an hour as he sipped, staring heavily at the white wall with its group of neutral Japanese prints — the standard decoration chosen by the Ministry of Works for the offices of Ambassadors. In a little while it would be time to deal with the Palestine bag; already it was being sorted in the Archives Department — the heavy canvas ditty-bags lying about the floor with their mouths agape, the clerks sorting swiftly upon trestle tables, covered with green baize, the secretaries of the various departments waiting patiently outside the wooden pen each for her share of the spoils…. He felt a small premonitory unease this morning as he waited, for Maskelyne had not as yet shown any sign of life. He had not even acknowledged, let alone commented upon, Pursewarden’s last letter. He wondered why.