Now there were six men out dancing and the clapping had settled into a rhythmic accompaniment that filled the room. Unfortunately, while things were at their height, Major Cookson felt he must take his party away. He said to those around that it was all very pleasurable but, alas, he had invited friends to drop in after dinner and must be at Phaleron to greet them. Those with him rose, but not very willingly. Harriet felt Charles Warden look at her as he went, but she kept her eyes on Zipper Cohen.
The departure of Cookson brought the dancing to a stop. In the silence that came down, Chew Buckle threw back his head and sang to the tune of ‘Clementine’:
Amidst the applause, Buckle climbed slowly and deliberately up on his chair, then to the table where he bowed on every side before sinking down, as slowly as he had risen, and going to sleep among the bottles.
Alan said it was time to get the boys back to Tatoi. He went out to order a taxi while Guy roused Chew Buckle and got them moving. As they left the room, Dobson called to the Pringles:
‘Hey, you two! There’s a special film show. You’ve got to come. It’s in aid of the Greek war effort. After the show, we’re holding a reception.’
Guy looked at Harriet and said: ‘Would you like to go?’
‘I’d love to go,’ she said.
‘Then you shall.’ In elated mood, he flung an arm round her shoulder and said: ‘You know if you want to go, you’ve only got to say so. Whatever you want to do, you’ve only got to let me know. You know that, don’t you?’ He spoke so convincingly, that Harriet could only reply: ‘Darling, yes, of course.’
10
Every day now there was something to celebrate. There might not be a decisive victory like Koritza, but there was always an advance and always stories of Greek prowess and heroism. People queued to give food and clothing to the men who, having quelled the invaders, were now driving them into the sea.
The snow was falling in the Pindus mountains. As it blocked the passes and disguised the hazards of the wild, roadless regions, the retreating Italians abandoned their guns and heavy armaments. It was said the mere sight of an unarmed Greek would put a whole Italian division to flight. Posters showed the Greeks in pursuit, with nothing to abandon, leaping like chamois from crag to crag. The Italian radio called them savages who not only pitched their enemies over precipices but threw after them the splendid equipment which the Italian people had bought at such sacrifice to themselves.
While it snowed in Albania, it rained in Athens. The wind blew cold. The houses were unheated. People went to cafés and crowding for warmth behind the black-out curtains, told one another if it were not victory by Christmas, it would be victory by spring.
Guy could be idle no more. He went to Aleko’s and announced his intention of starting an English class. Would any student lend a living-room in his house? The boys, made exuberant by his exuberance, all offered living-rooms.
When Guy turned up for the first class, expecting perhaps a dozen pupils, he found the room packed to the door with young people who acclaimed him not merely as a teacher but as a representative of Britain. Some of them had attended the School before it closed, but the majority knew only a little English. They felt if they were too young to fight, they could at least learn the language of their great ally. Guy, greatly stimulated by their response, began to plan a course of study. He would divide up the students into grades and hold a class every night. But where? The householder, a widow, treating the invasion of her living-room as a joke, said: ‘Tonight, yes. Very good. Other nights, some other place. Yes?’ The classes were moved from house to house, but no room was large enough and everyone hoped that soon some permanent meeting-place would be found.
Guy, pressed by obligations, was now in the condition he most enjoyed. He wanted to do more and more. One night, coming back to the hotel-room, he told Harriet that the students were eager to do a Shakespeare play. He was thinking of producing Othello or Macbeth.
‘But then I’ll never see you at all,’ Harriet said in dismay.
‘Darling, I have to work. You wouldn’t have me hanging around doing nothing while other men are fighting?’
‘No, but I can’t spend my life doing nothing, either; and certainly not in this miserable little room.’
‘You can always go to a café.’
‘Alone?’
‘Alan would be glad to have you with him.’ Guy had relegated Alan to the position of Harriet’s friend.
‘I don’t always want to be with Alan. Besides, people talk.’
‘Good heavens, what does that matter?’
‘I’m sure if you spoke to Dobson, he could get us into the Academy. We might even have Gracey’s room.’
Eventually persuaded, Guy approached Dobson, but his approach was not successful. Dobson explained – ‘quite nicely’, Guy said – that the rooms had to be kept in case Foreign Office employees turned up.
‘Fact is,’ Dobson had said: ‘Gracey had no right to be there. Don’t know how he worked it, but I suspect the Major’s influence. Anyway, if he’d stayed on, he’d’ve been told to find “alternative accommo”, so you can see it’s a case of “no can do”.’
‘And that’s that,’ Guy said to Harriet, glad that his onerous task was over.
Harriet had to accept it: the Academy was not for them. She said: ‘At least he’s sent us tickets for the film-show.’
‘What film-show?’
‘The one he told us about. A new English film has been flown out. It’ll be the first new film we’ve seen since Paris fell.’ She handed him the tickets that would admit them to a showing of a film called Pygmalion. Guy handed them back.
‘Sorry. Can’t manage it. That’s the evening I promised to address a gathering of students on the state of left-wing politics in England.’
‘But you promised to take me. You said when we were at Babayannis’ that we would go.’
‘I’m afraid I forgot. Anyway, the meeting’s much more important. I can’t let the students down.’
‘But you can let me down?’
‘Don’t be silly. What does a film-show matter?’
‘But I’ve been looking forward to it. I haven’t seen a new English film for months.’
‘You can get someone else to take you. Give my ticket to Alan.’
‘He doesn’t need your ticket. He’s going with Greek friends.’
‘Then ask Dobson to take you.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of asking Dobson to take me.’
‘It’s only a cinema. Why not go by yourself?’
‘There’s a reception as well; and I won’t go by myself. I should hate it by myself. You ought to understand that. You promised to take me, and I want you to take me. I’ve been looking forward. So you must ask the students to change the day of the meeting.’
‘I can’t do that. I can’t put them off. It’s not possible. If you break an appointment with English people, you can explain. But it’s different with foreigners. They would think there was more to it. They wouldn’t understand.’
‘You expect me to understand?’