‘Who is that?’ Harriet whispered. ‘Does he know us?’
‘Everyone knows us. We are the English. We are at war.’
‘But who is he?’
‘Ionescu, the Minister of Information. He’s always here.’
‘How odd to live in such a small capital!’
‘There are advantages. Whatever happens here, one is in the midst of it.’
Ionescu was not alone at his table. He had with him five women of different ages, all plain, staid and subdued in appearance, from whom he sat apart. He gazed fixedly at the orchestra stand and picked his teeth with a golden pick.
‘Who are the women?’
‘His wife and her relatives. The wife is the one nearest him.’
‘She looks down-trodden.’
‘She probably is. Everyone knows he comes here only to see the singer Florica. He’s her latest affaire.’
Harriet watched a man below, who, newly served, guarded his plate with one hand against the waiters and passers-by while with the other he forked-in his food, eyes oblique, as though fearing to have it snatched from him. She was hungry herself.
‘Will they ever bring the menu?’ she asked.
Guy said: ‘Sooner or later someone will remember us. There’s Inchcape.’ He pointed to a man in late middle-age, thickly built and very upright, who had paused with an ironically humorous courtesy while a group pushed fiercely past him searching for a table. As Guy rose and waved, Inchcape nodded up to him, then, when free to move, did so with the same air of amused irony, giving, for all his lack of height, the impression of towering over those about him. He had, Harriet remembered, once been headmaster of a minor public school.
As he advanced, she noticed someone was following him – a taller, leaner man, no more than thirty years of age, who came sidling among the tables, effacing himself behind his companion.
‘Why, Clarence!’ Guy called on a rising note of delighted surprise, and the second man, smirking, cast down his eyes. ‘That,’ said Guy, ‘is my colleague Clarence Lawson. So we’re all back together again!’ He stretched out his hands as the two arrived at the table. They seemed both pleased and embarrassed by his enthusiasm.
Taking Guy’s left hand, Inchcape gave it an admonitory tweak. ‘So you’ve got yourself married!’ he said and turned with a mocking half-smile towards Harriet. She saw that beneath the smile his glance was critical and vulnerable. One of his men had brought back a wife – an unknown quantity, perhaps a threat to his authority. When Guy made the introductions, she greeted Inchcape gravely, making no attempt to charm.
His manner, when responding, admitted her to his grown-up world. It changed as he turned back to Guy. Guy, it seemed, was not a grown-up; he was a boy – a favoured boy, a senior prefect, perhaps, but still a boy.
‘Where did you go this summer?’ Guy asked Clarence, who was standing, a little aloof, from the table. ‘Did you do that bus journey from Beirut to Kashmir?’
‘Well, no, I didn’t.’ Clarence had an awkward, rather confused smile, that made the more surprising the firm and resonant richness of his voice. Catching Harriet’s eyes on him, he looked quickly from her. ‘Actually, I just stuck in Beirut. I spent the summer bathing and lounging around the beach. Much as you might expect. I did think of flying home to see Brenda, but somehow I never got around to it.’
Guy asked Inchcape what he had done.
‘I was in Rome,’ he said, ‘I spent a lot of time in the Vatican Library.’ He looked at Harriet. ‘How was England when you left it?’
‘Calm enough. Foreigners were leaving, of course. The official who examined our passports at Dover said: “The first today”.’
Inchcape took a seat. ‘Well’ – he frowned at Clarence – ‘sit down, sit down,’ but there was nowhere for Clarence to sit.
A chair was brought from a neighbouring table but Clarence remained standing. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I only came to say “Hallo”.’
‘Sit down.’ Inchcape impatiently slapped the chair seat and Clarence sat. When all the party was settled, Inchcape surveyed it, drawing down the corners of his lips in ridicule of the announcement he had to make. ‘I’ve just been put in charge of British propaganda in the Balkans,’ he said. ‘An official appointment.’
‘Why, splendid!’ exclaimed Guy.
‘Umph! It’ll lead to a rearrangement of duties, of course. You,’ he nodded to Guy, ‘will take over the English Department – a much reduced department, needless to say. You can get some of the local teachers of English to give you a hand. I’ll remain in charge; all you’ll have to do my dear fellow is work.’ He pushed Guy’s shoulder in humorous dismissal, then turned to Clarence: ‘We’re opening a propaganda bureau in the Calea Victoriei opposite the rival establishment. You will be required to bring out a news sheet.’ He smiled at Clarence but did not attempt to touch him. Clarence, tilted back from the table, his hands in his pockets, his chin on his chest, was not responsive. He seemed to be rejecting patronage with an uneasy air of ease. ‘You’ll have plenty of other jobs to do, of course.’
Clarence said slowly: ‘I’m not at all sure I can take on this sort of work. I’m seconded from the British Council. The Council is purely cultural and Lord Lloyd …’
‘I’ll deal with Lloyd.’ Inchcape jerked upright and looked about him. ‘Where’s the waiter? What about a drink?’ He turned his neat Napoleonic face towards a waiter, who, conscious of having neglected the table, now sprang on to the platform with exaggerated alacrity.
When their order had been given, Harriet said to Inchcape: ‘So you think we shall stay here?’
‘Why should we not?’
Guy said: ‘Woolley stopped us earlier this evening and tried to order Harriet home.’
Inchcape, eyes and nostrils distended, looked from Guy to Harriet and back again: ‘Woolley took it upon himself to give you orders?’
Enjoying Inchcape’s indignation, Harriet said: ‘He said that he is the leader of the English colony.’
‘He did, did he? The old fool’s in his second childhood. He spends his days in the bar at the Golf Club getting sustenance out of a bottle, like a baby. In his dotage; his anecdotage, I’d say. Ha!’ Inchcape gave a laugh, cheered by his own wit, then he fell to brooding and, after a pause, said: ‘Leader of the English colony forsooth! I’ll show him who’s leader if he tries to order my men about.’
Guy and Clarence exchanged smiles.
Harriet asked Inchcape: ‘If there were an invasion, if we had to leave here in a hurry, where would we go?’
Inchcape, still annoyed, answered shortly: ‘Turkey, I suppose.’
‘And from there?’
‘Oh!’ His tone became milder. ‘Make our way through Syria to the Middle East.’ He assumed his old joking manner. ‘Or we might try a little trek across Persia and Afghanistan to India.’ But he still spoke grudgingly. He interrupted himself to say: ‘But there’ll be no invasion. The Germans have better things to do with their troops than spread them out over Eastern Europe. They’ll need all they’ve got to hold the Western front.’
Clarence stuck out his lower lip. He ‘hmmd’ a bit before remarking in a casual tone: ‘Nevertheless, the situation is serious. I bumped into Foxy Leverett today and he advised me to keep my bags packed.’
‘Then you’ll keep them packed a long time.’ Inchcape now shrugged the matter off. He might have been dealing with a junior-school fracas of which he had had enough.
The piccolo arrived, a scrap of a boy, laden with bottles, glasses and plates. Breathing loudly, he set the table.