‘Those two seem to be pretty well off,’ she said.
Guy said: ‘Shut up.’
‘I suppose I can say that this is where I would like to live myself?’
Toby Lush, walking silently on spongy soles, overheard her. He gulped and spluttered in gratification but, deferring to Guy’s egalitarian principles, said: ‘Nothing too good for the working classes, eh?’
There was no democratic nonsense about Dubedat, who came out five minutes later. He had the aggressive assurance of a man who had seen bad times but had come into his own, and none too soon. He advanced on Harriet as though she were the final challenge. He swung his hand out to her, and when he spoke she noted he was trying to drop his north-country accent.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is very pleasant.’ He smiled and she saw that his teeth had been scaled. His fingernails had been cleaned. The scurf had been brushed from his hair. His gestures were languid and dramatic.
Guy moved expectantly forward but Dubedat merely waved him to a chair. ‘Do sit down,’ he begged in his new social manner. His eyes and smiles were for Harriet, and Guy might have been no more than her appendage. Knowing he disliked her as much as she disliked him, Harriet supposed his belief was that if he could charm her, he could charm anyone. For Guy’s sake she responded as he wished her to respond.
The housekeeper wheeled in a trolley laden with bottles and glasses. ‘What are we all going to drink?’ Dubedat asked.
‘What is there?’ Harriet asked, impressed and modest.
‘Oh, everything,’ said Dubedat.
And, indeed, there was everything.
‘Shall I pour out?’ Toby asked.
‘No,’ said Dubedat sharply. ‘Go and sit down.’
As he poured the drinks, there was a rattle of glass against glass. His face, with its prominent beak and tiny chin, was set as tensely as the face of a foraging rat. He became very red and at one point dropped a decanter stopper.
‘Can I give a hand, old soul?’ Toby solicitously asked.
‘You can not,’ Dubedat fiercely replied and Toby dodged back, pretending he had received a blow.
He said: ‘Crumbs!’ and looked at the Pringles, but there was no laughter. Both Guy and Harriet were nervous, and everyone felt the delicate nature of the occasion.
The drinks dispensed, Dubedat sat himself down briskly. ‘I’ve seen Mr Gracey.’ There was a pause while he placed his glass on the table and took out a handkerchief to wipe his fingertips. The pause having taken effect, he went on: ‘I regret to say I’ve no very good news for you.’
The Pringles said nothing. Dubedat frowned at Toby, who was moving about the party like an anxious old sheep-dog. ‘Do sit down, Lush,’ he said, an edge on his voice. Toby obeyed at once.
As though an impediment were out of the way, Dubedat cleared his throat and said impressively: ‘I’ve approached Mr Gracey on your behalf. He would see you, he would like very much to see you, but he’s not up to it.’
‘He’s really ill, then?’ Harriet asked.
‘He had an accident. He’s been unwell for some time. He has his ups and downs. At the moment he doesn’t feel he can see anyone. He says you’re to proceed to Cairo.’
‘Suppose we wait a few days …’ Guy began.
‘No,’ Dubedat interrupted with placid severity. ‘He can’t keep you hanging round here … can’t accept the responsibility. He wants you to take the next boat to Alex.’
‘But wherever I am,’ Guy said reasonably, ‘I’ll have to hang around. Egypt’s full of Organization men, refugees from Europe, all waiting for jobs. The Cairo office doesn’t know what to do with them. They’re trying to cook up all sorts of miserable little appointments in the Delta and Upper Egypt. The work’s minimaclass="underline" just a waste of time. If I have to wait for work, I’d rather wait here.’
‘No doubt. But Mr Gracey doesn’t want you to wait. You’re to proceed. It’s an order, Pringle.’
There was a pause, then Guy spoke with mild decision: ‘Mr Gracey will have to tell me that himself. I’ll stay until I see him.’
Dubedat, flushed again, took on his old expression of peevish rancour. His voice grew shrill and lost its quality. ‘But you can’t stay. You’re not supposed to be here, and Mr Gracey doesn’t want you here. You’re expected in Egypt. So far as the Cairo office is concerned, you’re a missing person. That’s why Mr Gracey can’t let you stay. And he’s doing the right thing – yes, he’s doing the right thing! You ought to know that!’ Dubedat ended on the hectoring note with which he had once condemned everyone whom fortune had favoured above himself.
Guy, who had been worried by Dubedat’s earlier effusion, now said with composure: ‘I intend to stay.’
Dubedat gave an exasperated laugh. A frantic sucking noise came from Toby in the background. No one spoke for some moments; then, gathering himself together, Dubedat began to reason with Guy: ‘Look, there’s no job for you here. What with the war and one thing and another, the School isn’t what it was. Mr Gracey hasn’t been well enough to see to things. Numbers have dropped off. That’s the long and the short of it. The work just isn’t there.’
‘So, as Harriet said, someone is needed to get the place back on its feet.’
‘Mr Gracey’s in charge.’
‘Exactly,’ Guy agreed. ‘And I’m not prepared to leave Athens before I’ve seen him.’
Dubedat let out his breath, suggesting that Guy’s total lack of good sense was making things difficult for all of them, and said with the gesture of one throwing down a last card: ‘Your salary’s paid in Cairo.’
‘I can cable the London office.’
‘This is Mr Gracey’s territory. The London office can only refer you to him.’
‘I’m not so sure of that.’
Dubedat, agape between surprise and anger, shifted in his seat. It had never occurred to him that Guy, the most accommodating of men, could prove so unaccommodating. Now, as he met Guy’s obstinacy for the first time, something malign came into his gaze. He put his hand into his inner pocket and brought out a letter. ‘I’d hoped we could discuss things in a friendly way, I didn’t think I’d need to produce this. Still, here it is. Better take a dekko.’
When Guy had read the letter, he passed it to Harriet. It was a typewritten statement informing anyone whom it might concern that Mr Gracey, during the term of his disablement, appointed Mr Dubedat as his official representative. Harriet returned it to Guy, who sat studying it in silence, his expression bland.
‘So you see,’ Dubedat shifted about in his excitement, saying in a tone of finality: ‘What I say, goes. Mr Gracey can’t see you. He won’t see you and he won’t be responsible for you here. So if you’re wise, you’ll take yourself off on the first boat from the Piraeus.’ He snatched the letter from Guy and, folding it with shaking fingers, replaced it in his inner pocket.
Guy looked up but said nothing.
Beginning to relent a little, Dubedat leant towards him and spoke with an earnest, almost entreating, compliance. ‘If I were you, I’d go. Really, I would. For your own sake.’
Guy still said nothing. He maintained his bland expression but it was wan, and Harriet could scarcely bear his mortification. Unassuming though he was, he was conscious of a natural authority, the authority of the upright man. He believed in people. He had always supposed that his generosity would give rise to generosity. Helping others, he would, when the need came, be helped in his turn. It was not easy for him to accept that Dubedat, a mediocrity whom he had employed out of charity, would try to run him out of Athens. And the astonishing fact was that Dubedat was in a position to do it.