He made very good time and drew up before the Embassy to find Errol and Donkin loading the latter’s old touring car with all the impedimenta of professional hunters — gun-cases and cartridge bags, binoculars and thermos flasks. He walked slowly and shamefacedly towards them. They both greeted him cheerfully. They were due to start for Alexandria at midday. Donkin was excited and blithe. The newspapers that morning had carried reports that the King had made a good recovery and that audiences were to be granted at the week-end. ‘Now, sir’ said Donkin, ‘is Nur’s chance to make Memlik act. You’ll see.’ Mountolive nodded dully; the news fell flatly on his ear, toneless and colourless and without presage. He no longer cared what was going to happen.
His decision to ask for a transfer of post seemed to have absolved him in a curious way from any further personal responsibility as regards his own feelings.
He walked moodily into the Residence and ordered his breakfast tray to be brought into the drawing-room. He felt irritable and abstracted. He rang for his despatch box to see what personal mail there might be. There was nothing of great interest: a long chatty letter from Sir Louis who was happily sunning himself in Nice; it was full of amusing and convivial gossip about mutual friends. And of course the inevitable anecdote of a famous raconteur to round off the letter: ‘I hope, dear boy, that the uniform still fits you. I thought of you last week when I met Claudel, the French poet who was also an Ambassador, for he told me an engaging anecdote about his uniform. It was while he was serving in Japan. Out for a walk one day, he turned round to see that the whole residence was a sheet of flame and blazing merrily; his family was with him so he did not need to fear for their safety. But his manuscripts, his priceless collection of books and letters — they were all in the burning house. He hurried back in a state of great alarm. It was clear that the house would be burned to the ground. As he reached the garden he saw a small stately figure walking towards him — the Japanese butler. He walked slowly and circumspectly towards the Ambassador with his arms held out before him like a sleepwalker; over them was laid the dress uniform of the poet. The butler said proudly and sedately: “There is no cause for alarm, sir. I have saved the only valuable object.” And the half—finished play, and the poems lying upstairs on the burning desk? I suddenly thought of you, I don’t know why.’ He read on sighing and smiling sadly and enviously; what would he not give to be retired in Nice at this moment? There was a letter from his mother, a few bills from his London tradesmen, a note from his broker, and a short letter from Pursewarden’s sister…. Nothing of any real importance.
There was a knock and Donkin appeared. He looked somewhat crestfallen. ‘The M.F.A.’ he said ‘have been on the line with a message from Nur’s office to say that he will be seeing the King at the weekend. But … Gabr hinted that our case is not supported by Memlik’s own investigations.’
‘What does he mean by that?’
‘He says, in effect, that we have got the wrong Hosnani. The real culprit is a brother of his who lives on a farm somewhere outside Alexandria.’
‘Narouz’ said Mountolive with astonishment and incredulity.
‘Yes. Well apparently he ——’ They both burst out laughing with exasperation. ‘Honestly’ said Mountolive, banging his fist into his palm, ‘the Egyptians really are incredible. Now how on earth have they arrived at such a conclusion? One is simply baffled.’
‘Nevertheless, that is Memlik’s case. I thought you’d like to know, sir. Errol and I are just off to Alex. There isn’t anything else, is there?’ Mountolive shook his head. Donkin closed the door softly behind him. ‘So now they are going to turn on Narouz. What a muddle of conflicting policies and diversions.’ He sank despairingly into a chair and frowned at his own fingers for a long moment before pouring himself out another cup of tea. He felt incapable now of thought, of making the smallest decision. He would write to Kenilworth and the Foreign Secretary this very morning about his transfer. It was something he should have considered long since. He sighed heavily.
There came another and more diffident rap at the door. ‘Come in’ he called wearily. It opened and a dispirited-looking sausagedog waddled into the room followed by Angela Errol who said, in a tone of strident heartiness not untouched by a sort of aggressive archness, ‘Forgive the intrusion, but I came on behalf of the Chancery wives. We thought you seemed rather lonely so we decided to put our heads together. Fluke is the result.’ Dog and man looked at each other in a dazed and distrustful silence for a moment. Mountolive struggled for words. He had always loathed sausage-dogs with legs so short that they appeared to flop along like toads rather than walk. Fluke was such an animal, already panting and slavering from its exertions. It sat down at last and, as if to express once and for all its disenchantment with the whole sum of canine existence, delivered itself of a retromingent puddle on the beautiful Shiraz. ‘Isn’t he jolly?’ cried the wife of the Head of Chancery. It cost Mountolive something of an effort to smile, to appear to be overcome with pleasure, to express the appropriate thanks due to a gesture so thoughtful. He was wild with vexation.
‘He looks charming’ he said, smiling his handsome smile, ‘really charming. I am most awfully grateful, Angela. It was a kind thought.’ The dog yawned lazily. ‘Then I shall tell the wives that the gift has met with approval’ she said briskly, and moved towards the door. ‘They will be delighted. There is no companionship like that of a dog, is there?’ Mountolive shook his head seriously. ‘None’ he said. He tried to look as if he meant it.
As the door closed behind her he sat down once more and raised his cup of tea to his lips as he stared unwinkingly and with distaste into the dog’s lustreless eyes. The clock chimed softly on the mantelpiece. It was time to be going to the office. There was much to be done. He had promised to finish the definitive economic report in time for this week’s bag. He must bully the bag room about that portrait of himself. He must….
Yet he sat on looking at the dispirited little creature on the mat and feeling suddenly as if he had been engulfed in a tidal wave of human contumely — so expressed by his admirers in this unwanted gift. He was to be garde-malade, a male nurse to a shortlegged lap dog. Was this now the only way left of exorcizing his sadness…? He sighed, and sighing pressed the bell….
*******
XVI
The day of his death was like any other winter day at Karm Abu Girg; or if it was different it was only in one small and puzzling detail, the significance of which did not strike him at first: the servants suddenly ebbing away to leave him alone in the house. All night long now he lay in troubled sleep among the luxuriant growths of his own fantasy, dense as a tropical vegetation; only waking from time to time to be comforted by the soft whewing of the cranes flying overhead in the darkness. It was full winter and the great bird migrations had begun. The long vitreous expanses of the lake had begun to fill up with their winged visitants like some great terminus. All night long one could hear the flights come in — the thick whirring of mallard-wings or the metallic kraonk kraonk of high—flying geese as they bracketed the winter moon. Among the thickets of reed and sedge, in places polished to black or viper-green by the occasional clinging frosts, you could hear the chuckling and gnatting of royal duck. The old house with its mildewed walls where the scorpions and fleas hibernated among the dusty interstices of the earth-brick felt very empty and desolate to him now that Leila had gone. He marched defiantly about it, making as much noise as he could with his boots, shouting at the dogs, cracking his whip across the courtyard. The little toy figures with windmill arms which lined the walls against the ubiquitous evil eye, worked unceasingly, flurried by the winter winds. Their tiny celluloid propellers made a furry sound as they revolved which was somehow comforting.