“And hence Henry, to be seated opposite me, and in whom with your blessing I am to find consolation. Tell me, should I write out the place cards in Tom’s blood, or would you prefer me to use my own?”
“Must you be like that? I am only anxious that you should get straight back on with life. Henry is a likeable boy, from a very good family, and you shan’t tell me he isn’t handsome.”
There was a sadness in her mother’s eyes. Mary wondered whether it had always been there, becoming visible only now that she was attuned to sorrow’s frequency.
“Mother,” she said, “were you ever in love with Father?”
Her mother looked toward the salver where Palmer—before dematerializing—had carved the pristine wave into slices.
“We were very lucky to find each other,” she said.
“Yes, but were you?”
“Yes, we were very lucky.”
“Sometimes, Mother, I don’t know whether you’d be glad if I went along with you, and attended your functions and married some outrageously suitable Henry, or whether you wouldn’t secretly be much happier if I just said ‘hang it all’, and flew as close to the sun as I jolly well dared.’
“Yes, you are quite right, you don’t know that.”
A gray wind blew snowflakes past the windows. When the silence got too much, Mary said, “Hilda thinks we should volunteer for the ambulances.”
“Hilda is jolly public-spirited.”
“You know as well as I do that she only covets the uniform.”
“I’m glad it is you who said it.”
“So, do you think we should?”
“Should what?”
“Join the ambulances.”
Her mother fetched the cigarette case from its place on the mantel. She took a cigarette and slid the case over to Mary. Palmer appeared and disappeared, in such a way that he left behind him two lit cigarettes, an onyx ashtray and no lingering image on the back of the eye.
It was the first time Mary had smoked with her mother. They said nothing. They tended their cigarettes while the sliced aspic, untouched, melted slowly in the heat of the dining-room fire, releasing fish and shrimp by ones and twos into an uncertain future.
January, 1941
ALISTAIR GUESSED THAT THE arithmetic might not be encouraging if worked through to its conclusion. Malta was eight miles wide by eighteen long—as large as London, only with less to do in the evening. From this unpromising rock—their best remaining possession in the Mediterranean—the starving garrison had orders to hold out against the combined forces of Germany and Italy. Alistair tried to count the enemy’s available armies, but he ran out of fingers.
“Heath?” said Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton.
“My apologies, sir—I was miles away.”
“I’ll bet you wish you were.”
Alistair grinned. “Sir.”
“Brief the men, will you? A pep talk would be nice. Otherwise any kind of talk they will listen to. Soliloquy, philippic . . .” He waved his hand as if it was all too wearisome. Alistair saluted and left the old man to his paperwork.
Ten Regiment, Royal Artillery was mustered at easy readiness among the ramparts of Fort St. Elmo. The men relaxed in the twilight and lounged against the stone walls, while below them Grand Harbour shone under a fulvous moon. The men had the news already: the carrier Illustrious had been badly smashed up and was on its way in to port. Now the whole spite of the enemy would be directed against the island, to finish the great ship off. It was up to Alistair to tell the men, officially, that they were in for it.
He swallowed his nerves, blew his tin whistle, and stood firm while two hundred men came to their feet with the grudging compliance they might have afforded to a football referee who could just as usefully have let play continue. The men got themselves into their three batteries, each battery subdivided into two troops of four guns apiece, each gun accounting for a sergeant and seven gunners.
They lined up facing Alistair while the senior officers assembled at his side—his five fellow captains and the three majors. As captain, Alistair commanded a four-gun troop. Even when one added in his subalterns and his warrant officer, only thirty-five of the men arranged before him were his own. It was nerve-wracking, which was why Hamilton did it—made his juniors take turns to address the whole of 10 Regiment.
The men fell quiet, waiting for Alistair to be a genius. They watched him with the world-class loyalty and affection that only the British Army could disguise as open sarcasm.
At his side, Simonson whispered, “Your fly is undone, old man.”
With effort, Alistair stopped himself from checking.
Simonson whispered, “Oh, and your mother telephoned.”
Alistair ignored him.
“I’m to let you know that your father’s cock tastes of your dog’s arse.”