Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“Oh, I don’t know, Austen. It isn’t all a matter of uniform. Suppose you were insolent to one of your employees at the office, do you think he’d answer back just because he’s a civilian?”

She could see he was puzzled by her having asked such a question. “But I’d never dream of talking to anyone like that fellow at the station— “

“I know you wouldn’t, but IF you did… my point is that… oh well, never mind, it isn’t important. And I expect the insolence didn’t bother Norris half as much as it did you.”

“Actually he seemed glad I’d been a witness of it. As if he enjoyed proving to me how humble and insignificant he was. Does that make sense?”

“Probably—to him. You’re a big shot, so he’ll show you he’s a little shot.”

“Sheer perversity.”

“Well, it’s his method of scoring off people.”

“But why should he want to score off his own father? That’s what I can’t understand. Does he ever try to score off you?”

“Oh yes, often. He enjoys telling me I’m not a great actress. Of course I know I’m not, but he never loses a chance to remind me. And he was scathing about the play.”

“Collins also told me he got a little drunk last night.”

She was suddenly furious. “Collins had no right to say such a thing—”

“Oh, he wasn’t saying it against him. It ISN’T against him anyway— home on leave for the first time—”

“Furlough, not leave. And he WAS drunk slightly—so was I— we went to supper and had champagne.”

“Fine. Why not? I wish I’d got home in time myself—I’d have joined you. What I meant was… the only reason I had for bringing up the matter, I assure you… was that THAT might have been the reason why he criticized your play.”

She answered gaily: “Oh, Austen, don’t try to soften the blow. He was cold sober when he criticized it. He thought it deplorably insignificant compared with today’s events on land, sea, and in the air. And it is… But it made him LAUGH. I’m so glad about that. We had a very pleasant evening together.”

In the late spring of 1945, when the war in Europe was over and everybody’s story was beginning to leak out, Carey learned for the first time what had happened to Paul. She met at a party a British naval officer who had been in liaison with the French at Bordeaux during the confused days following the German collapse; it was near Bordeaux that a camp for internees had been located, and Paul, having been one of them, had passed through the city after his release. The Englishman had spoken to him. “He looked sad. It’s not unusual, though. When the first excitement wears off, those who’ve spent years behind barbed wire are apt to be like that. The reality never turns out to be as wonderful as the dream beforehand. Maybe that was so in his case. But there were others from the camp who read him differently —they said he was upset because the Germans lost the war. That doesn’t make sense and I simply don’t believe it. Talking to me, he hadn’t a good word for the Germans or for his fellow-prisoners either—in fact, he seemed pretty fed up with everybody, one way and another.”

A few weeks later she heard from a different source (a journalist) that Paul was back in America—in Washington, trying to stir up official interest in the fate of his unfinished film based on the Book of Job. Nobody in Washington cared, but his technique of being charming and a nuisance in well-adjusted doses was having some result—invitations to cocktail parties, meetings with a few minor government personages, and so on. “He might pull something,” the journalist admitted. “You never can tell. A lot of people don’t realize he’s American—that’s in his favour. Being able to jabber French to an attaché counts for more in some Washington circles than having been born in—where was it?—Iowa.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I caught the accent and then looked him up in Who’s Who. But the accent’s a bit encrusted by now. You COULD take him for a foreigner—especially when he wears his opera cloak.”

“What? A real opera cloak? With top hat and gloves and cane—”

“No, you’ve got the wrong layout. A crushed black Homburg, a walking-stick that he carries into a room and leans on, and a very tattered brief-case. How old is he, by the way?”

“He must be—let me see—fifty—fifty-two.”

“Well, he looks sixty-two. Cultural Ambassador, Liberated War Victim, Man of Genius. It’s a good line with the hostesses of our nation’s capital. He has a good line with publicity too, if he doesn’t overdo it. When he said he’d never heard of Lana Turner he hit the news-wires… Am I being too flippant? I’ve often noticed that ex-wives enjoy a good laugh about their ex-husbands.”

Carey had been honestly glad to learn that Paul had come through the war years safely; she had also been amused at the picture of him at one of those Washington parties; but now she caught a conspiratorial air in the journalist’s attitude, as if he were inviting her to snicker a little in private. She said: “Well, I certainly hope he has luck,” and managed to catch the eye of someone she knew. She did not talk to the man again.

Nor did she pass on the news to Austen. Since her accidental meeting with Paul in 1939 she had sensed that Austen did not care to discuss him; she had sensed, too, that though Austen did not blame her for the meeting and had said not a word in criticism, he still wished it had not happened.

One Saturday morning in late August she grabbed up her mail in a hurry and did not glance at it till she was in the car on the way to the farm. Austen was driving, and when they reached the dull high-speed stretches along the park-way she began opening envelopes randomly and without much interest. One of them was a Western Union wire; it said, with a Washington return address: “Can you lunch with me same restaurant on Upper Broadway next Wednesday one p.m. Important. Paul.” She felt her cheeks warming as she re-read the message and hastily slipped it with other mail into her purse; the warmth, she soon decided, was largely indignant. The wire might easily have been read over the telephone to Richards. And the phrase ‘same restaurant’, as if they had made a habit of secret meetings. Her first impulse was to tell Austen immediately, but then she saw his unclouded face; he was enjoying the drive and looking forward to his first post-war arrival at the farm—better wait till later in the day, perhaps till after dinner when they were both relaxed. But she told him before that. They took an afternoon walk to see what new land could be cleared, and returning across the fields she showed him the wire.

“I’d rather you didn’t go,” he said, handing it back.

“I hadn’t even thought of going.”

He walked some way without comment. Then he said: “If it’s important, as he says it is, he can write and give you details.”

“Yes, of course. This is really too absurd, whatever it is he wants.”

“Probably only money.”

She felt her indignation suddenly deflate. Austen’s mood was so reasonable, but his voice was cold; his guess was as plausible as any other, yet from him it came unsympathetically. It was like the wrong kind of line for a certain type of actor; in his case it was the wrong line for a rich man. She knew he had spoken it simply and uncynically, but somehow it made her switch to an indulgent feeling for Paul, even to a whimsical tolerance of the wire. She said: “I expect he thought it tactful to suggest meeting at that restaurant instead of outside the Players’ Club.”

They walked again in silence. Near the house he said ruminatively: “I’m afraid he isn’t getting what he hoped for in Washington.”