City of Gold. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘It’s a private matter, and very urgent.’

      There were no seats in sight. Peggy looked round. Where the lobby ended at a staircase, glass-panelled doors gave onto the bar. One door was partly open and Peggy could see one of the residents – Captain Robin Darymple – holding forth to the usual crowd. Darymple turned in time to see Peggy looking at him. He gave her a wonderful smile that lit up his face. She smiled back. Robin’s charm was unassailable. She knew this would not be the right time to take two strangers into the bar. ‘Perhaps you could sit in the dining room,’ said Peggy.

      Net curtains obscured the oval-shaped little windows in the dark mahogany doors. She swung one open and ushered them through. The dining room was gloomy, only one electric light bulb was lit. There was no one else there.

      Through the doors Peggy heard footsteps on the marble as someone came out of the bar, leaving the doors wide open. Darymple’s high-pitched voice was now clearly audible. It was the tone he used when telling his stories. ‘So he said he had spent all night with the carps. Fish? I said. He said, No, dead carps! Crikey, I thought, he means a corpse. I said, And this all happened in Belgravia? And the big fellow with the beard said, No, Bulgaria.’ There was appreciative laughter from throats down which much drink had been poured. She recognised it as one of Darymple’s stories. His skill as a storyteller was renowned throughout the clubs and bars of Cairo.

      For the two strangers, Peggy indicated a small table near the window. Again there came the sound of footsteps across the lobby and of the doors swinging closed to hush Darymple’s voice. The corporal put down the brown leather suitcase and looked round. It was very still, as only a well swept, carefully prepared, empty dining room can be. He said, ‘This will do nicely. Can we sit here for half an hour?’

      Peggy nodded.

      The girl watched her corporal. Only when he seemed to approve it did the girl sit down.

      ‘They’ll start coming in for dinner soon,’ said Peggy. ‘There are no spare tables so –’

      ‘We understand,’ said the corporal. ‘I suppose it’s officers only.’

      Peggy West was too tired to be provoked into argument. She said, ‘Tell them Peggy said it was all right. Peggy West.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said the girl. ‘It’s most kind of you.’ It was the first time she’d spoken. She had a soft upper-class voice. Perhaps, thought Peggy, that explained something about their relationship; the way in which the young corporal was so prickly about the privileges accorded to officers. ‘My name is Alice Stanhope,’ said the girl.

      The corporal extended a hand and Peggy shook it. ‘Bert Cutler.’ He amended it to ‘Corporal Albert Cutler, if we are being formal.’ Peggy found the Scots accent hard to detect. Perhaps he’d found it expedient to eliminate it. Or perhaps Peggy had been away from Britain too long. Cutler had a confident handshake, tanned face, pleasant smile, and clear blue eyes. He was an attractive man. It would be easy to fall in love with such a man, thought Peggy, but he would not be easy to keep. English foxhounds were never seen at dog shows and she’d never heard of one being kept as a pet.

      ‘Peggy West. I live here. Second floor.’

      ‘Thank you again, Miss West.’

      Peggy smiled and left them to themselves. She didn’t believe they were cousins. Once back in the lobby she looked behind the desk to see if there was a letter from her husband, Karl, or from her brother in Canada, but there was nothing in the box. She was not surprised; mail took months and months, and it was very uncertain now that everything had to go round the Cape and so many ships got sunk.

      She had gone up a few steps when a thought struck her. She retraced her steps and went into the dining room with enough fuss for them to recover themselves if they were embracing. She need not have troubled herself; they were sitting decorously, facing each other solemnly across the small marble-topped table.

      ‘I’m sorry to bother you’ – she looked at the girl – ‘but I suddenly wondered if you could type.’

      ‘Type?’ The girl looked at her as if humouring a lunatic. ‘Yes, I can type a bit. At least I could last year.’

      ‘You’re not looking for a job, by any chance?’

      The corporal said, ‘She’s got to find somewhere to stay.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I have to get back to my unit tonight.’

      ‘Where I work – at the Base Hospital – we need a full-time typist. In fact someone to sort out the office,’ said Peggy looking from one to the other. ‘We are getting frantic, really frantic.’ Her voice was hearty. This was Peggy West who’d been the school hockey captain, Peggy West who bargained remorselessly in the bazaars.

      ‘I have nowhere to sleep,’ said the girl.

      Peggy closed her eyes. Those who knew her recognised such gestures as marks of great emotion. ‘I’ll find her a place to sleep if she’ll come and work for us.’ She said it to the corporal. He was the one who made the decisions, and he would not mistake the tones of a solemn promise.

      The girl and the corporal looked at each other. She smiled at him. It was a smile of love and reassurance.

      ‘Here? A room here?’ said the corporal, suspecting perhaps that Peggy meant to send the girl to some flea-bitten lodgings on the other side of town.

      ‘You’d have to share a bathroom with me and another woman,’ she said. ‘The room you’d be using rightfully belongs to an officer at the front … He’s been gone into the blue since November, but he could return any time.’

      The girl smiled as if she’d achieved something quite remarkable, and the same look was on her face as she turned to the corporal.

      Peggy added, ‘I hope you haven’t got too much luggage. There isn’t room to swing a cat.’

      ‘Just the one case. That’s all I have,’ said the girl looking down at it. It was small to be a case that contained all one’s worldly possessions. The girl smiled sadly, and Peggy felt sorry for her. ‘I was beginning to think I’d spend the night in the railway station waiting room.’

      Peggy wondered if she had any notion of what a night in Cairo’s main railway station would be like. The girl was like a china doll. It was difficult to guess what sort of person she was behind that shy exterior. Peggy hoped that she would get along with the others at the hospital.

      ‘I’ll leave you two alone now,’ said Peggy. ‘Come up to the second floor. My room is to the left of the staircase. The door has a hand-of-Fatima brass knocker.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t go wandering farther upstairs. The top floor belongs to a Russian prince. He’ll eat you alive if you go into his sanctum.’

      ‘Thank you, Peggy,’ said Alice softly.

      When the corporal made no response, Peggy looked again at him. He was staring into space. For just one brief moment she saw within him a different person. Peggy smiled at him but he did not respond. She had the feeling that he wasn’t seeing her. Then suddenly his face changed, and he was relaxed and smiling again as if the moment had never been.

      ‘Yes, thank you, Peggy,’ said Cutler. ‘Thank you very much.’

      Peggy West didn’t sleep well that night. She went to bed and closed her eyes tightly, but still she СКАЧАТЬ