‘I think Pinkrose did institute an inquiry.’
‘Did he? Good for him. Still, I can’t see him making a go as director here. He’s too narrow, too much the don. It’s a position for a younger man. I should have got it.’
‘I think so, too,’ Guy spoke a firm declaration of faith in Phipps and Harriet, looking at Phipps, said:
‘You’d better not pass that on to Pinkrose.’
‘What do you think I am?’ Phipps stared angrily at her and she stared back, offering no conciliation. If Guy chose to make a declaration of faith, she was just as ready to make a declaration of war. Phipps turned his back on her and said to Guy: ‘Pinkrose’s own appointment was a bit of a wangle, I bet? How did he fix it?’
‘He’s a friend of Lord Bedlington. They knew one another at Cambridge.’
‘Hah!’ said Phipps, needing to be told no more, and the two walked just a little quicker, drawing ahead and dropping their voices in a privacy of agreement. Catching a word here and there, Harriet knew they were discussing in an atmosphere of scandalized conspiracy, the suppression in different countries of the left wing opposition, which was for both of them the suppression of desirable life.
‘Look at them!’ Harriet said to Alan. ‘They’re like a couple of schoolgirls discovering sex.’
Alan smiled. Sensing her jealousy but refusing to become involved with it, he started hunting for flat stones which he sent skimming over the sea for the entertainment of Diocletian. As the dog ran about, Harriet saw that its vertebra was visible and its haunches stood out from its skin, but, galvanized by the game, it tore about the beach, splashing in and out of the water, and panting in anticipation whenever Alan felt need for a rest.
Yakimov said confidentially to Harriet: ‘I expect, dear girl. you’re feeling a trifle peckish. I know I am. Where are we going to eat? We ought to give our mind to the problem, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I think we should.’
They had hoped to eat in one of the sea-side restaurants, which before the war had been noted for their crayfish and mullet, but now they were all shut, not from a shortage of fish but a shortage of fishermen.
She said: ‘We could try the Piraeus. There must be some sort of eating place for the men employed about the harbour.’
‘You think that’s the best we can do?’ Yakimov looked glum. ‘I know, dear girl, one mustn’t complain. Not the done thing. Must think of the fighting men; but it comes a bit rough on your poor old Yak. I’m doing an important job, too. I need nourishment. Don’t get paid much, but it’s regular. For the first time in years your Yak can lay his hands on the Ready, and he can’t get a decent meal for love nor money.’
‘It’s hard,’ Harriet agreed: ‘But, remember, you’re going to the Major’s party.’
‘Oh yes. Get a bite there all right.’ He turned to Alan: ‘What about you, dear boy?’
Alan, like the Pringles, had been invited to both parties. He had, he said, decided to support Mrs Brett.
Harriet looked to where Guy and Phipps walked with their heads together: ‘Why don’t we ditch Mrs Brett?’ she said.
Alan said, shocked: ‘No. No, we couldn’t do that.’
The rain began to fall in a gentle film, chilling their faces like powdered ice. Someone was coming towards them along the esplanade: a man with a fish basket, the first human being they had met since they left the bus. They were all hungry with a hunger that had not yet touched starvation but caused an habitual unease. As the man approached, Harriet, though talking of something else, watched him in expectation, certain he was there on their behalf. He had fish in the basket and would open his restaurant for no purpose but to feed them. Impelled by her faith, or so it seemed, he made for a wooden cabin, unlocked the padlock and went inside.
Alan grunted as though he had shared Harriet’s dream, and said: ‘It looks as though we may get something after all.’
The cabin, of clinker board, was built out to form a verandah over the shore. A stairway led up from the beach.
Recalled by the same excitement that possessed the others, Ben Phipps and Guy went up the stair and knocked on the door. Alan, Harriet and Yakimov watched hopefully from below. The man came out, surprised to have custom, but when Phipps explained their need, he smiled and said he had come from Tourkolimano where he had been able to buy some red mullet. He waved them to the verandah tables, for the cabin itself was nothing but a cook-house.
The verandah had a roof and there were rush-screens at either end so that the party would be protected from the rain if not from cold.
As the smell of frying mullet came from the kitchen, Yakimov hunched his shoulders and clasped his hands to his breast as though in prayer. The others swallowed down their impatience and stared out at the sea that had lost its violet and green. The band of indigo still lay along the horizon but the rest was a glaucous yellow pocked by rain-drops. The rain, gathering strength, bounced on the glossy sand and hit the roof above their heads. Diocletian had remained on the shore, but soon had had enough of it and came up in search of his master. Finding Alan, he shook himself violently then eagerly sniffed the air. ‘Lie down,’ said Alan and he lay, head on paws, but with eyes restless, on edge with hunger like the rest of them.
The talk had lapsed. Harriet asked Yakimov if he could still get blinis at the Russian Club. He sighed: ‘Hélas! No caviare, no cream, no blinis. But sometimes they have octopus. Do you like octopus?’
‘Not much.’ She had an innate horror of eight-legged creatures, but was glad enough to eat anything for now not only the flesh of beasts, but the hearts, kidneys and livers went to the army, and the civilians ate the intestines. Grey, slippery and bound up like shoelaces, these had brought about an epidemic of dysentery.
The mullet was ready. The proprietor hurried out to set the table and Alan asked if he had anything to spare for the dog. The man bent down and ruffled Diocletian about the ears then, shaking his head in compassion, he described the dog’s condition with sad gestures. When he brought out the mullet, he placed three squid before the dog. Diocletian opened his mouth and they were gone. The company watched open-eyed, but they had been small squid and the fish also were small. They disappeared as quickly as the squid. Guy said: ‘We’ve had our Christmas dinner, after all.’
‘I wish we could have it again,’ said Yakimov. ‘D’you think he’d fry a few more?’
‘We have had our share.’
The man came out and said he was leaving but the guests were to remain seated until the rain grew less. He refused payment for the squid which were a present for the dog, and charged very little for the mullet. After they had settled their bill, he remained for a while talking to Alan with so much vitality and laughter that Harriet and Yakimov, who knew no Greek, thought he was telling some entertaining story. When he had shaken hands with them all and gone off, still carrying his fish basket, Alan said: ‘He said he didn’t intend opening today. He went to Tourkolimano at dawn and waited all morning to get the fish. It was for his own family. He came here merely to get his knife, but seeing we were English, he could not refuse us.’
‘So we’ve eaten his food?’ said Harriet.
Phipps said: ‘I expect he’s got more in the basket.’
Guy, overwhelmed, praised the generosity of the Greeks and their tradition of hospitality. He talked for a long time and at the end Harriet said: ‘And they are poor. If you are really poor, you can’t refuse to sell anything.’