The Swallow and the Hummingbird(40)
Before he slept he thought of Susan. He tried to think of Rita and felt guilty when Susan’s face eclipsed hers. He recalled their conversation from beginning to end. The brittleness of her expression and the way it had softened. She was abrasive and sharp, quick-witted and dry. A woman in control of herself but one who shut out people as a form of self-defence. She was distrustful and cynical and yet he sensed she was capable of great tenderness. He wondered whether they would see each other again once they arrived in Argentina. He would disappear up to Córdoba on the Rayo del Sol train, miles and miles from the city, and she would be lost amongst the millions of faceless inhabitants of Buenos Aires.
Chapter 9
The following morning George awoke feeling light spirited, unlike the previous mornings when it had been a trial just to drag himself out of bed. He realized, too, that it was the first night in many that he hadn’t relieved the war in his dreams. He lay in bed for a while staring up at the ceiling, delighting in the novelty of such cheerfulness. Now he awoke to the promise of a new beginning in a new country and he was tickled with excitement.
He splashed his face with water and brushed his teeth. His thoughts were far from Frognal Point and the letter to Rita lay discarded on his bedside table. Written out of guilt and a sense of duty. He took a while deciding which shirt to wear and ran a comb through his hair. He didn’t shave. Felt he looked more like a man with a shadow of stubble on his chin. Satisfied with his appearance, he stepped out into the corridor.
To his dismay, Susan wasn’t in the breakfast room but the brigadier and his wife were. When she saw him, Mrs Bullingdon waved furiously before leaning into the table to whisper to her friends. He approached and greeted her politely. ‘George, dear, let me introduce you to Mr and Mrs Linton-Harleigh and their daughter Miranda,’ Mrs Bullingdon exclaimed in her reedy voice. ‘Flight Lieutenant George Bolton. One of our young heroes. Do join us, George.’
George swept his eyes over the eager red faces who beamed enthusiastically up at him. He shook their hands graciously, reluctantly, accepted Mrs Bullingdon’s invitation, and noticed at once the sexual hunger in the eyes of their daughter. Like a predator who hadn’t fed for weeks.
‘Miranda’s going to set Buenos Aires alight,’ twittered Mrs Linton-Harleigh, nervously playing with her teaspoon. ‘We’re going to be staying with cousins in Hurlingham. You must come and visit. So many parties. We’ll have to go shopping the minute we get there, no pretty dresses in London with all that ghastly coupon business. Such nice people the Anglo-Argentines.’
‘You will come, Mr Bolton?’ Miranda asked, and George shuddered at the steely resonance in her voice.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to be up country.’
‘Oh dear, how frightfully dreary.’ Miranda sniffed her contempt. ‘You know, Buenos Aires is the centre of all things. If you’re not there, you’re nowhere.’
‘Then I shall be content to be nowhere,’ he stated impassively. Miranda stared at him in disbelief, not knowing what to make of him.
‘The Ambassador is giving a party next week. A charming man, the Ambassador. Do you know him?’ Mrs Linton-Harleigh asked, raising her plucked eyebrows.
‘This is my first visit to the Argentine,’ George explained, wondering why the hell he was spending time with these obnoxious people. Miranda’s shoulders relaxed for she was now able to forgive him his ignorance.
‘If I were you I would spend some time in the city. It’s a delightful place. Proper people,’ she said with emphasis on ‘proper’.
‘When one’s fought in the war one thinks very little of the social ambitions of the likes of you, my dear,’ said the brigadier to Miranda, in a patronizing tone. ‘Ambassadors and princes, who gives a damn? We’re all flesh and blood, aren’t we?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mr Linton-Harleigh. ‘But in order to get on in the world one has to know the right people. It’s all very well pretending you’re above it all, but it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.’
‘It’s most unfair, but it’s life,’ his wife added breezily. ‘In that respect the war has changed nothing.’
George watched her pick at a piece of toast and thought they were the worst kind of English people to represent his country abroad. He shuddered to think what the Argentines thought of the British if they were epitomized by the Linton-Harleighs and Bullingdons.
‘Look, Mama, there’s that poor American lady again.’ Miranda looked over George’s shoulder to Susan who was taking a small table on her own. Mrs Linton-Harleigh’s face twisted into mock sympathy.