Fuel for the Flame Read online

  ‘Didn’t I engineer that cleverly?’ she said.

  It was a situation without precedent for him. He let his intuition guide him. Had Lila been a sophisticated girl, he would have proffered a sophisticated approach: a radio turned on, a small bottle of champagne; a leisurely campaign; a lingering over the preliminaries. But Lila was not that kind of girl. She was alone in a man’s flat. That was how she saw the issue; there was no place here for coyness or for coquetry. He walked towards her: he put his hands under her elbows.

  ‘It’s hot,’ he said. ‘There’s a kimono in the wardrobe in my room. You’d be much more comfortable in that. I’ll join you in five minutes.’

  She was lying on the bed, her hands crossed behind her head, the kimono crossed, but with one knee raised.

  ‘I’m a virgin,’ she said. ‘I suppose I ought to warn you.’

  She gave a long slow sigh and once again raised her arms, crossing them behind her head. ‘So that’s one hurdle cleared,’ she said.

  Her beauty dazzled him. Those smooth, firm curves. One hurdle cleared indeed, but did she know how many hurdles still remained? His eyes caressed her. She had no conception of how minute the surrender had yet been: of how much more there was to win. He thought of other women, women who had known other men; women whom he had sought to please in ways they had not been pleased before; striking unstricken chords, finding what they liked most, but more than that, far more than that, revealing what they had only guessed at. In all her beauty Lila lay stretched before him. Each line, each curve, each shadow had its own sphere of pleasure. A many-stringed instrument had been confided to his guardianship. What melodies were hidden there?

  She swung her feet over the bed. She rubbed her eyes. ‘Shelagh’s got to be fed,’ she said. ‘So’ve I.’

  3

  They were back at the Residency by eleven. The Studholmes had retired. Lila walked over to the looking-glass. ‘One’s supposed to look different. Do I look any different?’

  So it had happened then. Shelagh remembered a story by Marcel Prévost in Lettres de Femmes in which two girls at a convent school had vowed to tell each other exactly what happened on their wedding night. Then one of them got married and the letter she had written on her honeymoon had been an adult, impersonal description of the scenery. ‘It’s always like that,’ the abandoned one had thought. ‘One has to find out for oneself.’

  She remembered that first question at the races. Lila had then recognized in her a friend, an equal; someone who shared a common inexperience. Was she now going to lose that bond? Were she and Lila going to find themselves no longer on equal terms with one another? Shelagh felt very lonely: she did not want to hear Lila’s confidences. She would prefer when her time came to find out for herself. She felt tired and very much alone. The whole episode seemed trivial and squalid. She wished she had a home like other girls had with her own parents, where she could feel security and continuity; so that she could face the future confidently, in beliefs that she could inherit. She thought of Basil and of Julia. If only her fate could be like theirs. Two people who met and loved each other, each recognizing a mate in the other. She curled up in the corner of her bed, wistful and disconsolate. If only her father and mother were together, building a bulwark for herself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  On the following Tuesday Charles Keable received a letter from Forrester.

  Dear Charles,

  I am sorry to bother you with this; and I hope that you won’t think me a tiresome old fusspot, but there are a few of your employees about whom I’d like to have a fact or two. I enclose a list. I should be so grateful if you would ask that pleasant young man of yours—I’ve forgotten his name already, the one with the cute wife whose hair’s cut like a helmet—to let me know who gave them references. Nothing for you to worry over; nothing in terms of sabotage, a few extra threads in that spider’s web, that’s all.

  What a good time you gave us Saturday. The Prima Donna enjoyed herself as much as I did. …

  Charles ran his eye down the list. Not one of them rang any bell in his memory, yet he was responsible for their presence on the payroll; if one of them caused trouble he would have to stand the rap; though it wasn’t he but the Pearl office in London who had selected the men who chose them. He had inherited whatever his predecessors had achieved or failed to achieve. He was praised for their industry, blamed for their faults. If something went wrong now, if there were sabotage it was as likely as not to be through a mistake made before his arrival. And if there was … He checked. It was no good thinking along those lines. One had to have self-confidence, to believe in one’s future, and in that of the concern for which one worked. He lifted his telephone to call Basil Hallett; then he remembered that Harry Pawling had left a note on his desk, asking for an appointment. He could kill two birds with one stone.

  ‘Is that you, Harry? Come along whenever it’s convenient to you. As soon as you like.’

  Pawling was round within ten minutes.

  ‘Ah, good, take a seat. I’ve one or two things to talk over. But let’s hear your problem first.’

  ‘It’s about my boy. An operation for appendicitis.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s nothing serious. A routine job. But Blanche is worried. She feels she should go back. She felt badly about leaving him behind. He did too. It was my influence as much as anything that brought her back. I didn’t want to be out here without her. You know how it is, for somebody like myself. That extra drink at the club which means two more when you get back.’

  Charles nodded. He had seen enough of the white man’s problem in the Orient to recognize that it was only respect for women, the need to be respected by women, that kept a man from heavy drinking. He recalled a phrase from a Restoration play, ‘What hogs men become when they weary of women!’ And in the Far East, where there was such a scarcity of white women, where there were so many bachelors and husbands separated from their wives, it was easy for men to reach that point in the early forties: particularly for somebody like Harry Pawling, who was gregarious, a good mixer, open-handed; who was never happier than at a bar with a group round him, swapping stories.

  Charles looked carefully at Harry. Harry was four years younger than himself, but he looked four years older. Harry had put on weight, he had lost his hair; he had few of his own teeth left, he had an open mouth for which it was difficult to make well-fitting dentures; and the broken veins on his nose and on his cheek bones were indicative of self-indulgence. In the ordinary course of routine Harry would be taking on here as G.M. when he himself either retired or was transferred to the London Office; but how would Harry look in three years’ time? Unless he were careful he would not be the kind of man that Pearl would select as its general manager in a place like Karak. A G.M. was not only the manager of an oil camp, he fulfilled semi-diplomatic functions. He had to be in touch with those in power and those who might come into power. Aware of politics but outside them. ‘Remember Abadan’ he had been warned in London. If there’s a coup d’état, we want the new men to say, ‘Leave Pearl alone. We can work with Pearl.’ He represented Pearl. Would Harry be that kind of man in three years’ time? A lot depended upon Blanche. Harry had been very wise to bring her back with him.

  ‘There’s another thing, too,’ he was continuing. ‘It’s not fair on a wife to be left alone in England. Blanche is ten years younger than me. There are too many temptations.’

  ‘Are you telling me that?’

  Pawling flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘If you hadn’t, I should have done. I know the geography of that road. You were very, very wise to bring Blanche back with you.’

  ‘But it was hard for her, I do see that, leaving Ralph behind. He was so upset, poor little chap: Karak looks so far away, upon a map. Blanche tried to explain that in terms of aeroplanes it was only two and a half days away. “If you really need me,” she said, “I’ll just hop a plane and
I’ll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.” That consoled him. “You promise—really promise?” he said. “Yes, really promise.” And now he’s got appendicitis. He hasn’t asked Blanche to go back. But it would make all the difference to him if she did. She would fulfil her promise, and that’s so important with a child. You must never tell a lie, never break a promise to a child. Can’t you see him thinking afterwards, She said if it was anything important. What does she call important?’

  Pawling went on and on. Charles listened, nodding in agreement. It was part of his job to let members of his staff talk on, while he himself withheld his judgment or allowed it to form while they were talking. Harry had made his point, but he had the garrulity, the mental woolliness of the man who habitually drank too much; who did not see events and persons in sharp clear outlines. What would he be like in three years’ time?

  At length Charles interrupted him. ‘You’re quite right. She should go at once. We’ll get her priority on a plane.’

  ‘That’s very good of you. I’m very grateful. Now there’s another point. Our finances are not in too good shape. Would the cost of this ticket come out of our own pockets?’

  Charles hesitated. A Pearl contract gave parents certain concessions with regard to their children; they allowed children to come out once a year and they gave a mother a journey home a year. They were anxious that there should never be a separation of longer than a year, but Blanche and Harry had returned from leave only seven months ago. There was a clause in the contract about special concessions in case of real necessity. Would an accountant in London regard this as a real necessity? Perhaps, if the case were presented with sufficient force by a general manager. We live in a world of psychiatric clichés, Charles thought. Children must be made to feel secure. Once in a while, a psychological necessity could be pleaded. But not too often; the best way to retain one’s influence was to use it sparingly.

  ‘It’s a difficult point,’ he said. ‘You know what accountants are like. The clause in the contract is left purposely vague. I can’t promise anything but I think that Blanche should go. I’ll put up the case as strongly as I can. In the meantime, we’ll pay for Blanche’s ticket, and if London makes difficulties we’ll arrange for you to repay Pearl on a widely spread instalment plan. I wish I could offer more, but it’s out of my control.’

  ‘I’m more grateful than I can say. It’s more than I expected.’

  He pushed back his chair, but Charles checked him. ‘There are one or two other things. In the first place, this.’

  He handed over Forrester’s letter. ‘It’s self-explanatory,’ he said.

  But Pawling had to read it a second time before he caught its gist. ‘Am I to give this to Hallett? It has your approval?’

  ‘Yes, it’s O.K. by me. Tell Basil to be as co-operative as possible. How’s Basil doing, by the way?’

  ‘He’s making out all right.’

  ‘Not more than that?’

  ‘He gets on well with people.’

  ‘I know that. What about his work?’

  ‘If there had been anything wrong with it, wouldn’t I have told you?’

  ‘You might not, knowing that Barbara and Julia were close friends.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Let’s put it another way. Suppose London were to be looking for an assistant manager—they aren’t, let me add, but suppose they were to be— and they were to ask me whether I would recommend Basil for the post, would you advise me to?’

  ‘I’d say he wasn’t ready for it yet.’

  ‘That’s what I’d say. Do you think he ever will be?’

  ‘As long as there was someone to watch that he didn’t make mistakes.’

  ‘I see. Thank you. Yes, he’s slapdash, but now and again doesn’t he do something good?’

  ‘Before you came, he worked out a scheme showing how certain departments overlapped and how certain jobs were duplicated. It saved Pearl a lot.’

  ‘I see; yes, that’s how I’d have figured it; now there’s one other thing. How’s Iris Sinclair making out?’

  Rex Sinclair was a tough young engineer, who had spent eighteen months in the Persian Gulf, without seeing a white unmarried woman. On his return to England he had fallen for the first pretty girl whom he had met. Such marriages provided an inevitable problem in an oil camp, the twenty-year-old bride who had visualized the tropics in terms of Hollywood being overwhelmed by the monotony of her routine.

  Pawling shrugged at the G.M.‘s question.

  ‘We’re trying to get her interested in something. Julia’s got her on to theatricals. She might be some good at that.’

  ‘How are the rehearsals going?’

  They were doing Clifford Bax’s Rose Without a Thorn and Pawling was to be Henry VIII.

  ‘It should be all right,’ Pawling said. He assumed that a play would go well if he himself was on the stage three-quarters of the time.

  ‘You haven’t fixed on Katheryn Howard, have you?’

  ‘Not yet, it’s difficult. Iris might do; but we’re trying one or two others first. The old hands get jealous if a newcomer is put in the limelight right away.’

  ‘You’ll have enough to keep you busy anyhow while Blanche is in England.’

  ‘I’ll certainly have that.’

  They gossiped for a few more minutes, then Pawling took his leave. The moment he had gone, Charles half-closed the air-conditioner and took off his pullover. With talkative visitors like Pawling, he made the room cold so as to hasten their departure.

  Harry Pawling was on the telephone at once.

  ‘It’s O.K. The old man’s going to do his best. He’s giving you your ticket, then arguing it out with London. You ought to be away within three days. By the way, there’s one thing I’d be grateful if you’d do first. Hear Iris Sinclair read that part.’

  ‘I’ll call her right away.’

  Iris was round within ten minutes. She was pretty and small and blonde. Born in a London suburb, she was gay and fun at a party. She was exactly the kind of girl whom a solid technician in his early thirties would fall for on a leave; she was exactly the kind of girl to be exasperated by the monotony of an oil camp.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Blanche, ‘and I’ll turn on the air-conditioning. Heaven knows how we managed here without it.’

  Iris laughed. ‘That’s what you all say. I’m not so sure. It keeps reminding me that I’m a prisoner. It’s so cool inside and so unpleasant out. When I see Rex off in the morning, I think of all the other wives hurrying back into their bedrooms for an extra half-hour in the cool: so many prisoners in their little air-conditioned cells: their husbands are their wardens. No need to lock them in, the heat outside does that.’

  She spoke quickly, breathlessly, with an air of exaggeration that took the bark out of her sting. She was not whining, she was amusingly belligerent. Blanche laughed. There were times when she felt impatient with the Iris Sinclairs of this world. Why should they expect to have all the plums of life handed to them on a platter? But Iris was pretty and vivid: brave too in her way. She stood up to life; being married to Rex Sinclair could not be too much fun. I must do my best for her, she thought.

  ‘Come on, let’s hear the part,’ she said.

  Iris had a light, fresh voice, with a note of eagerness, as though she were at the same time shy and thrilled. She should be all right, Blanche thought.

  2

  Charles Keable returned to lunch to find only two places laid. ‘What, no Shelagh?’

  ‘She rang through two hours ago. She wanted to stay on an extra day.’

  ‘She and Lila become inseparable.’

  ‘Like Julia and I used to be.’

  ‘Like you and Julia still are.’

  Barbara shook her head. ‘It’s not the same thing after marriage. Before marriage two girls are fellow travellers in an unknown country; they compare notes: each learns from the other. The first thought when anything new happens is, “I can’t wait to tell Ju
lia,” but after marriage it isn’t an unknown country any longer; each knows more or less what the world is like; and besides there are certain things they can’t confide in one another. But there’s nothing that Lila and Shelagh can’t discuss.’

  ‘Doesn’t Julia discuss Basil with you?’

  ‘Only up to a point.’

  ‘Does she worry about him?’

  ‘I don’t know that “worry” is the word I’d use. They quarrel sometimes; everyone knows that, but then they make it up. They’re crazy about each other still.’

  ‘She doesn’t worry about his work?’

  ‘Ought she to?’

  ‘I’m worried over it, a little.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He’s so slipshod; he … oh, well, I daresay he’ll settle down some day. Perhaps when they have children. Are they planning to have any, do you know?’

  ‘She’s never mentioned it. I haven’t asked her. … That’s what I meant when I said there are some things one can’t confide.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. Perhaps she can’t have one. If that’s so, that’s bad luck; perhaps that explains things in Basil. He may feel that it’s his fault. That gives him a sense of guilt, which is responsible for the silly things he does: the way that he shows off: ordering champagne the way he did that night. We may make fun of psychoanalysts but psychiatry in itself’s another matter. We certainly know a great, great deal our fathers didn’t. I suppose Julia wanted children.’

  ‘Most women do.’

  It was said without any special inflexion, yet to Charles it had a sudden sharp significance. Was Barbara thinking of herself? During their engagement he had said, ‘We don’t, do we, want children right away?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ she had answered.

  But that was eighteen months ago. She might well be feeling differently now. It was a problem that he had known he must face some day. He dreaded it. The arrival of children would change everything. He wanted to enjoy as long as possible the sunshine of this halcyon period. It would not come again. He was nearly fifty. He knew so well the pattern of family life; of how a love affair ended, and matrimony began. He could imagine Barbara saying, soon after the birth of the first child, ‘Now we’ve begun on this, we’d best go on with it.’ A young couple might be able to pick up the threads, start a second honeymoon after a close period of forty months, but a man of his age could not. When the curtain fell this time it would fall for ever. He had to face the issue soon. If he and Barbara were going to have a family, they should not wait too long.