There was a long pause. The atmosphere was dispirited. Perhaps it seemed to Inchcape there was something forlorn in the appearance of the two young people in front of him, for he said in a tone of self-justification: ‘You’ll be all right. You’re young.’
‘Does that make a difference?’ Harriet asked.
‘All the difference in the world. Before you’re forty you never think of death: after forty you never think of anything else.’ He laughed, but as he gazed at them in the dingy light he seemed to Harriet pitiably aged and ill. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘you’d be worse off in England.’
Harriet said: ‘I’d rather be bombed with my own people than cut off here.’
Inchcape gave a laugh. ‘You think you would.’
Conversation lapsed again and Inchcape, glancing back through an open door which revealed his made-up berth, said: ‘Look, no point in hanging about. Dear knows when this train will take itself out. Everything’s to pot these days. I feel a bit under the weather, so I’ll say goodbye and get my head down.’ He reached out of the window and gave one hand to Harriet, the other to Guy, smiling his old sardonic smile while a single tear trickled down his discoloured, battered face: ‘Goodbye, goodbye. I’ll be back before you have time to miss me.’ He pulled his hands free and, turning abruptly, entered the sleeper and shut the door.
Harriet put her hand into Guy’s. As they wandered off through the cavernous dark of the station with its smells of carbon and steam, its desolating atmosphere of farewells, Harriet reflected that she herself would be gone in a day or two and Guy would be left alone.
27
Restless in unemployment though he was, Guy was in no hurry to explain things to Pinkrose. He had intended to go to the Athénée Palace on Monday morning but delayed so long that luncheon was on the table and he decided to wait until evening.
As they were about to eat, the telephone rang. It was Dobson to say that Pinkrose had appeared at the Legation in a state of great alarm. That morning Galpin had seized on him in the hotel hall and insisted on telling him about the attack on Inchcape. He had gone at once to Inchcape’s flat where he had been told by Pauli that his friend had left Rumania. In panic he had sped to the Legation and demanded that a plane be chartered immediately to fly him home.
‘By the way,’ Dobson interrupted himself, ‘is that right? Has Inchcape taken himself off?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why all this secrecy?’ Dobson’s tone was light, almost humorous, but there was an edge on it. Not waiting for an answer he talked rapidly on: ‘Well, my dear fellow, the noble lord is now your pigeon. He was over an hour here, wasting everyone’s time, making ridiculous claims to special passages, etcetera. We just haven’t time to cope. H.E. told him to fly to Persia or India, but he says he has no money. I suggested he might go to Athens, where he’d be out of the way of trouble and probably meet kindred spirits. Anyway, we’ve got him his exit visa. He’s free to go whenever he likes. Meanwhile, be a good chap, keep him out of our way. Try and persuade him that, contrary to his belief, the entire Guardist movement is not, repeat not, directing its activities against his person.’ Dobson ended on a laugh, but rang off abruptly.
Guy sat down at the table, saying: ‘I’ll go immediately after luncheon.’
After luncheon he sat on. Knowing how acutely painful the coming interview would be for him, Harriet made no attempt to harry him. She was leaving next day and went into the bedroom to sort out the clothing she would take. After some minutes he followed her in, his face despondent, and said: ‘Perhaps you’d come with me. The fact you are still here might reassure him.’
‘All right, but I must first speak to Sasha.’
She had bought Sasha a small cheap case to hold such clothing as Guy had given him. He wanted to take some of his drawings and, as these would have to be placed flat at the bottom of Harriet’s portmanteau, she went to his room to tell him to sort them out. She found him curled like a kitten on the bed.
She had complained about the constant noise of the mouth-organ and now, his hands wrapped about it, he was playing almost without sound.
His possessions were neatly arranged on the table. The drawings were ready for her to pack.
She said: ‘What is that ridiculous tune you’re playing?’
He took his lips from the mouth-organ to say: ‘“Hey, Hey, Hey, Ionesculi”. Despina sings it.’
She said, trying to speak sternly: ‘You know, when you get to Athens you’ll have to start some serious study.’
He smiled at her over the instrument, then put it back to his lips.
Though it was siesta-time when Guy and Harriet reached the hotel, the hall and vestibule were crowded. Again, as on the day of the arrival of the military mission, the hotel servants could not accommodate a half of those who had come in to drink their after-luncheon coffee.
Galpin, standing in the hall sourly surveying this assembly, told the Pringles that a rumour had gone round that a high-ranking German officer called Speidel was arriving that afternoon. ‘He’s still young and handsome, so they say. Look at those bloody women! Like a lot of randy she-cats. And there’s that bitch back again, on heat, as usual.’
Princess Teodorescu had entered the hotel. She had returned to Bucharest relying, like the others of her class, on German influence to protect her against the Iron Guard. It was said she had already found a lover among the young German officers, several of whom stood round her while she talked furiously, twitching her shoulders and making frenzied gestures at them. She was wearing a new leopard-skin coat. Was there any more repellent sight, Harriet wondered, than a silly, self-centred, greedy woman clad in the skin of a beast so much more splendid than herself?
Hadjimoscos was of this party. Slipping about on his kid shoes, his plump little body that looked soft, as though stuffed with sawdust, he moved from one officer to another, talking earnestly, lifting his flat, pale Tartar face in rapture, occasionally placing his little white padded hand on a German sleeve. They were joined by a stout, flat-footed man who walked like a peregrine: a noted German financier brought here to advise on Rumania’s disintegrating economy.
‘But’ – Galpin turned slowly and nodded towards the desk – ‘you’ve seen nothing yet. Look who’s over there.’ The Pringles followed the direction of his gaze and saw that the scene was being closely watched by two keen, dog-faced fellows in the black uniform of the Gestapo.
‘When did they arrive?’ Guy blandly asked.
‘No one knows. But they’re not the only ones. There’s dozens of them. You’ve heard about Wanda?’
‘No,’ said the Pringles, feeling they should proceed to Pinkrose but willing enough to be detained.
‘Ah!’ Galpin jerked up his long, morose, dishonest face with an intimation of tragedy. ‘They’ve chucked her out, the bastards.’
So that was another face gone from the English circle.
Pinkrose, when Guy knocked on his door, cried: ‘Entrez, entrez,’ in a high, agitated voice.
They found him on his knees, stuffing his clothing into his bag. He was wearing a flowered cotton kimono of a sort worn in Japan by tea-shop girls. He jerked his head round and, seeing the Pringles, seemed startled by their temerity, but he had nothing to say. He returned to his packing.
Guy attempted an explanation of Inchcape’s departure. ‘He hopes to be back very shortly,’ he said.
Pinkrose appeared not to listen. Scrambling to his feet, he stripped off the kimono and pushed it in with the rest. He was wearing shirt, trousers and several woollen cardigans. He hastily got into his jacket, saying: ‘I’m catching the boat-train to Constanza.’ He went round, collecting the last of his possessions, keeping at a distance from the Pringles as though afraid they might seek to retard him. As he moved he said, breathlessly: ‘I take this badly, Pringle. I take it very badly. I shall not forget it. Inchcape has not heard the last of this, not by any means. His man lied to me. He repeatedly told me that Inchcape was ill in bed; and all the time he was plotting to slip away to safety – abandoning me, an invited guest, in a strange town where I was liable to be attacked by ruffians. Unforgivable. I travelled several thousand miles to deliver an important lecture and …’