Leo’s expression changed to theatrical surprise. ‘She poisoned herself. Is that so mysterious?’
‘Please. Please have another drink.’
‘Oh, very well,’ said Leo, all ruffled feelings now, ‘I won’t pester you any more. I just thought the more our people understand the English the better. I was only trying to be helpful.’
‘Your best way of being that is to shut up. Please.’
‘I will. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
Left blessedly alone for a moment, Wright thrust his line of thought away from him and surveyed the main group of three Russians and four Englishmen – no women; this was a serious-drinking night, not a screwing night, and that was an end of the matter. All seven faces shone with goodwill as well as drink; any number of them might be running with tears or blood before the next round was even poured, but for the moment the balance held. The three regarded the four much as the four the three, with tolerance, shallow affection, limited trust and that faint contempt likely to persist between parties of different nationalities even when long known to each other. And such were their fixed attitudes; at other times their feelings would be less whole-hearted but not essentially different. Wright could not have spoken for the Russians, nor did he particularly want to, but he was sure the English view of them would never change much. Peter Bailey, builder, hard-working, talkative, generous; Jim Hough, water engineer, not very bright, close with his money; Terry Hazel-wood, farm engineer, fattish, reliable, well dressed, knowledgeable about the local fauna; Frank Simpson, draughts-man, a great teller of stories, a great one for the women; all under forty. If the units of supervision were to be withdrawn (as one day they were presumably bound to be) in their lifetime, they would be sorry. For them, things worked well enough as they were. English is a language, thought Wright to himself; England is a place.
The person primarily responsible for the festivities had so far taken very little part in them and now sat apart looking as black as thunder. Wright went over in the hope of a chance to elicit vexation. He said as bracingly as he could,
‘You’re not looking too pleased with life, Ensign Petrovsky.’
‘It’s not life, it’s myself. I did something the other day that made me very ashamed and I can’t seem to get it out of my mind.’
‘How annoying. Perhaps telling me about it would give some relief.’
Wright had been looking forward to turning down an unexpressed invitation from Alexander to coax the story out of him, and was quite surprised when he shook his head decisively. ‘It probably would, but I’d have to tell you everything for it to mean much, and I can’t do that because there are confidences in it. Still, thank you for asking. Even these few words have helped a bit. But this is boring. How’s Kitty?’
Kitty’s part in these sessions was traditionally limited to preparing sandwiches and other cold foods beforehand. By the time the guests arrived she was not only out of the way but out of the house, to spend the night with a neighbour. So went Alexander’s own decree; he could not be responsible, he said, for what his brother-officers might get up to when drunk. Wright considered this to be eyewash. The chance of even an attempted rape, given the hefty opposition it would arouse, was surely negligible. No, what the fellow wanted to do was prevent his mates from getting so much as the most distant glimpse of his girl, not to have to use up the smallest part of his drinking-time guarding her against invitations to badminton-parties. But (Wright reflected) many young men were less confident than they usually appeared. He said,
‘Kitty’s in very good form. She sends you her love.’
‘Thank you for relaying it. Please give her mine, for what it’s worth.’
Soon afterwards Alexander said it was dull of him to sit about with a long face, poured himself a drink and joined in the singing that had started up. Wright had been on the point of thinking that for once something other than the incomplete fulfilment of his wishes was troubling the young man; now he suspended judgement. Ten minutes later, with the complete transformation of Alexander into a breezy, simple, honest Russian officer who had taken a drop too much (having more than once in the past appeared as a melancholy, troubled, bitter Russian officer who was killing himself with drink), Wright discarded his new ideas. At the sight and sound of the red sweaty faces and their stylised expressions, the arms punctiliously flung round shoulders, a boredom edged with hopelessness filled him. This was warmth, high spirits, good fellowship. What else was it? If this was not it, what was it like? Where was it to be found? Then a new song began and he felt hatred, less keenly than when Leo had proposed his toast but in the same direction.
‘And the waters as they flow
Seem to murmur soft and low,
“You’re my heart’s desire, I love you…”’
Somehow or other the evening was brought to an end without anybody actually punching anybody or being sick or falling down, though Victor said he needed physical support to get him to and into the transport. This, one of the eight motor-vehicles possessed by the regiment, was the ‘B’ Squadron stand-by waggon, a 500-kilogram Borzoi truck. It was of course forbidden under the direst penalties to remove it from quarters except on Major Yakir’s personal order but, since its use was just as strictly confined to emergencies and there never were any emergencies, it was in practice removed quite often. Victor was shoved into the back along with Dmitri, the fourth member of the party, Leo went behind the wheel and Alexander sat next to him. When it started up, the engine sounded very loud. Pinking horribly on the inferior fuel, the waggon lurched down into the village high street, past the grocer, the barber, the saddler, the dozens of houses. All were in darkness, as was the street itself; only the central parts of the larger towns were lit. Holding to the centre of the carriageway, Leo increased speed.
‘That was a splendid party,’ said Victor’s voice from behind.
Leo made a scornful noise. ‘How would you know? You’re too drunk to remember it.’
‘That’s how I know it was splendid – great bits of it are missing already. That shows I must have had enough vodka. Did we sing?’
‘Why do you get so drunk?’ said Dmitri.
‘What else is there to be’?’
‘For you, not very much, perhaps,’ said Leo.
‘Well, tonight at least it was a very sensible thing to be. That’s what we went there for, isn’t it? We went there to get drunk, not to talk or sing. Did we sing? Anyway, if we did it was in course of getting drunk, not for its own sake. I can’t think why you went there, unless it was to sneer at the English.’
‘The alternative was sitting in the mess with George and the major.’
‘You’d have missed a marvellous party if you’d done that. Do you know how I know it was marvellous? Because already I can’t remember much about the later bits. Did we sing?’
‘We sang,’ said Dmitri. ‘Now shut up and go to sleep. The Borzoi followed its headlights along stretches of straight road, round wide curves, up and down gentle slopes. Now and then Alexander was visited by the illusion that, instead of the car following the road, the road moved about to suit the car, that it was wherever the car went. He had had the same fancy a couple of times before, he remembered, but only when very tired. Was he very tired now? Certainly he had not slept well the last night or two, whether because thoughts of Mrs Korotchenko had actually kept him awake he had no way of knowing, but he had thought the thoughts all right. Some of them had been fruitless self-questionings about why he found them so disagreeable, even what precisely he found them. He shut his eyes now and tried to imagine he was riding Polly.
He was just beginning to doze when he was jolted back into wakefulness by a momentary uncharacteristic movement of the car. ‘What was that?’