He said, while it dawned upon him that his love affair with Selina remained a love affair on his side only, ‘Yes, of course. Would you like some bacon and egg?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and started to dress.
He took hope again, and brought out his rations. She was accustomed to men who got food from the black market.
‘After the twenty-second of this month.’ said Nicholas, ‘we are to get two and a half ounces of tea — two ounces one week and three ounces the next. ‘‘How much do we get now?’
‘Two ounces every week. Two ounces of butter, margarine, four ounces.’
She was amused. She laughed for a long time. She said, ‘You sound so funny.’
‘Christ, so I do!‘ he said.
‘Have you used all your clothing coupons?’
‘No, I’ve got thirty-four left.’
He turned the bacon in the pan. Then, on a sudden thought, he said, ‘Would you like some clothing coupons?’
‘Oh yes, please.’
He gave her twenty, ate some bacon with her, and took her home in a taxi.
He said, ‘I’ve arranged about the roof.’
She said, ‘Well, see and arrange about the weather.’
‘We can go to the pictures if it’s raining,’ he said.
*
He had arranged to have access to the roof through the top floor of the hotel next door, occupied as it was by American Intelligence, which organization he served in another part of London. Colonel Dobell, who, up to ten days ago, would have opposed this move, now energetically supported it. The reason for this was that his wife Gareth was preparing to join him in London and he was anxious to situate Selina in another context, as he put it.
In the north of California, up a long drive, Mrs G. Felix Dobell had not only resided, but held meetings of the Guardians of Ethics. Now she was coming to London, for she said that a sixth sense told her Felix was in need of her presence there.
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nicholas greatly desired to make love to Selina on the roof, it needs must be on the roof. He arranged everything as precisely as a practised incendiary.
The flat roof of the club, accessible only by the slit window on the top floor, was joined to a similar flat roof of the neighbouring hotel by a small gutter. The hotel had been requisitioned and its rooms converted into offices for the use of the American Intelligence. Like many other requisitioned premises in London, it had been overcrowded with personnel during the war in Europe, and now was practically unoccupied. Only the top floor of this hotel, where uniformed men worked mysteriously day and night, and the ground floor, which was guarded day and night by two American servicemen, and served by night- and day-porters who worked the lift, were in use. Nobody could enter this house without a pass. Nicholas obtained a pass quite easily, and he also by means of a few words and a glance obtained the ambivalent permission of Colonel Dobell, whose. wife was already on her journey, to move into a large attic office which was being used as a typing pool. Nicholas was given a courtesy desk there. This attic had a hatch door leading to the flat roof..
*
The weeks had passed, and since in the May of Teck Club they were weeks of youth in the ethos of war, they were capable of accommodating quick happenings and reversals, rapid formations of intimate friendships, and a range of lost and discovered loves that in later life and in peace would take years to happen, grow, and fade. The May of Teck girls were nothing if not economical. Nicholas, who was past his youth, was shocked at heart by their week-by-week emotions.
‘I thought you said she was in love with the boy.’
‘So she was.’
‘Well, wasn’t it only last week he died? You said he died of dysentery in Burma.’
‘Yes I know. But she met this naval type on Monday, she’s madly in love with him.’
‘She can’t be in love with him,’ said Nicholas.
‘Well, they’ve got a lot in common she says.’
‘A lot in common? It’s only Wednesday now.’
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth dose behind him tread.
‘Joanna’s marvellous at that one, I love it.’
‘Poor Joanna.’
‘Why do you say poor Joanna?’
‘Well, she never gets any fun, no men-friends.’
‘She’s terribly attractive.’
‘Frightfully attractive. Why doesn’t someone do something about Joanna?’
*
Jane said, ‘Look here, Nicholas, there’s something you ought to know about Huy Throvis-Mew as a firm and George himself as a publisher.’
They were sitting in the offices of Throvis-Mew, high above Red Lion Square; but George was out.
‘He’s a crook,’ said Nicholas.
‘Well, that would be putting it a bit strongly,’ she said.
‘He’s a crook with subtleties.’
‘It’s not quite that, either. It’s a psychological thing about George. He’s got to get the better of an author.’
‘I know that,’ Nicholas said. ‘I had a long emotional letter from him waking a lot of complaints about my book.’
‘He wants to break down your confidence, you see, and then present you with a rotten contract to sign. He finds out the author’s weak spot. He always attacks the bit the author likes best. He —‘I know that,’ said Nicholas.
‘I’m only telling you because I like you,’ Jane said. ‘In fact, it’s part of my job to find out the author’s weak spot, and report to George. But I like you, and I’m telling you all this because —‘
‘You and George,’ said Nicholas, ‘draw me a tiny bit closer to understanding the Sphinx’s inscrutable smile. And I’ll tell you another fact.’
Beyond the grimy window rain fell from a darkening sky on the bomb-sites of Red Lion Square. Jane had looked out in an abstract pose before making her revelation to Nicholas. She now actually noticed the scene, it made her eyes feel miserable and her whole life appeared steeped in equivalent misery. She was disappointed in life, once more.
‘I’ll tell you another fact,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’m a crook too. What are you crying for?’
‘I’m crying for myself,’ said Jane. ‘I’m going to look for another job.’
‘Will you write a letter for me?’
‘What sort of a letter?’
‘A crook-letter. From Charles Morgan to myself. Dear Mr Farringdon, When first I received your manuscript I was tempted to place it aside for my secretary to return to you with some polite excuse. But as happy chance would have it, before passing your work to my secretary, I flicked over the pages and my eyes lit on…‘
‘Lit on what?’ said Jane.
‘I’ll leave that to you. Only choose one of the most concise and brilliant passages when you come to write the letter. That will be difficult, I admit, since all are equally brilliant. But choose the piece you like best. Charles Morgan is to say he read that one piece, and then the whole, avidly, from start to finish. He is to say it’s a work of genius. He congratulates me on a work of genius, you realize. Then I show the letter to George.’
Jane’s life began to sprout once more, green with possibility. She recalled that she was only twenty-three, and smiled.
‘Then I show the letter to George,’ Nicholas said, ‘and I tell him he can keep his contract and —‘
George arrived. He looked busily at them both. Simultaneously, he took off his hat, looked at his watch, and said to Jane, ‘What’s the news?’
Nicholas said, ‘Ribbentrop is captured.’
George sighed.
‘No news,’ said Jane. ‘Nobody’s rung at all. No letters, nobody’s been, nobody’s rung us up. Don’t worry.’
George went into his inner office. He came out again immediately.