Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

Ottilie pursed her mouth sceptically. ‘Are you …?’ she began. ‘Is there … you know, anyone? Are we to expect any, um, good news at all? Is that why you’re back? Forgive me if I’m being nosy and impertinent, but we are old friends.’

‘What can you mean? Oh! I see! No, I’m not here to get married, or engaged, or whatever. The fact is that I can’t possibly get married when I have no income to speak of. I think one has a responsibility to support one’s wife properly, and to send one’s children to a decent school. Besides, I’ve spent most of my recent life in one of the most savage places on earth. I’m quite unfit for civilisation.’

‘Oh, but you’re not,’ said Ottilie. ‘Archie, you really ought to come back. I’m sure there’s lots you can do. You even speak French. You’re frightfully noble, and all that, but really you’re being a little bit old-fashioned. The war did change everything, you know. People married in droves during the war, without any money or forethought at all.’

‘It’s sweet of you to say so, but I am a lost cause, I’m sure of it. I’m only fit to instruct grown RAF officers on how to a do a Khattak sword dance and a Chitrali vulture dance, and lead tribesmen in battles against their own kind. And I’m too old. I’m a lot older than Daniel, you know.’

‘Oh, Archie, don’t. Of course I know how old you are. I always looked up to you most tremendously. You seemed so … grown up and out of reach, somehow.’

He looked into her large brown eyes, and realised that she still doted on him even after all this time. It occurred to him once again that it might be very nice to be married to her. She was a good soul, a gentle hard-working girl who had done her bit in the war, and deserved a happy and normal future. She’d be a good mother too, and he would have liked to have children. Then he looked over at Rosie and caught her eye. She held his gaze for a solemn moment, and then dropped her eyes away.

‘It’s hopeless,’ he thought to himself. ‘It would have been better not to come. She’s my brother’s now, and I’m well and truly scuppered. Entièrement foutu . The best I can hope for is a grave in Peshawar.’

‘I might go back early,’ he said to Ottilie. ‘We’re expecting another uprising. Waziris this time. Wouldn’t like to miss it.’

Ottilie looked from him to Fluke. She had been very attracted to the latter when they had first met. She still was, in truth, but it was Archie she had always hankered for, even though he was in India and she hardly ever saw him. Part of her devotion to him was brought about by her natural sympathy for someone who seemed to have been born to melancholy and defeat. He made her feel maternal and sisterly.

Daniel came up and clapped Archie on the back ‘ Frater meus! Time for the last event. Let’s prepare!’

‘“ Frater mi ”, I think you’ll find,’ said Archie. ‘The vocative of “ meus ” isn’t declined like “ bonus ”.’

‘Well, frater mi , it’s time to get out on the lawn and arm ourselves.’

‘Onward the Pals!’ said Archie gloomily. ‘Those that are left.’

‘Time to turn out the lights!’ announced Daniel. ‘Not a glimmer from any nook! Nor cranny! All gather in the conservatory! The spectacle is about to begin!’

‘Shall I bawl out “The March of the Gladiators”?’ suggested Fluke.

‘No,’ said Daniel, ‘everyone will think we’re clowns, and not noctambulant prestidigitators.’

‘Ooh,’ exclaimed Sophie, who, delighted by Daniel’s phrase, clapped her hands together and hugged them to her chest.

Fluke, Archie, Daniel and Fairhead went down the steps into the garden, the company assembled in the conservatory, Esther sat on her mother’s knee, and Millicent was sent scurrying about the house to dowse the lights. It was quite suddenly very dark indeed.

Down at the far end of the lawn two matches flared, two brilliant fires broke out, and then quite suddenly they flew diagonally across the lawn, passing each other in the middle. Then they hurtled down the sides, and across the ends, only to be sent diagonally past each other once more.

It was wondrously beautiful to see these balls of flame accelerating through the darkness. There was something primeval and exciting about it, something inexplicable. They heard Daniel’s voice calling ‘Flick!’ and the balls of flame were stopped dead, and then, after ‘One, two, three!’, they arced into the air, stopped, arced again, criss-crossed continuously, until, one after the other, the flames went out, leaving only the smell of smoke and fuel in the air.

‘Lights on!’ cried Daniel.

The lights were rekindled, and moments later the four men reappeared, pleased with themselves, somewhat sootied about the clothes and hands.

‘How did you do that?’ asked Ottilie. ‘I haven’t seen anything so marvellous in all my life!’

‘A splendid show,’ said Mr McCosh. ‘Most ingenious. My congratulations!’

‘All you need,’ said Fairhead, ‘are hockey sticks and some hockey balls wrapped in rags and soaked in petrol. And matches. And people who know how to play hockey.’

‘Can we see it again tomorrow?’ asked Ottilie eagerly.

‘Of course, but we’ll have to go and get another can of petrol, or there’ll be nothing for the mower. And tomorrow afternoon we’re playing cricket, ladies against gentlemen.’

‘That’s hardly fair,’ said Rosie. ‘And when are we going to do any dancing?’

‘It’ll be terribly fair,’ replied Archie. ‘The ladies will be armed with full-sized men’s crickets bats.’

‘Is that fair?’

‘It is when you consider that the men will be armed with broomsticks. All bowling will be done left-handed. Unless you are left-handed, of course.’

‘It’ll be a fiasco,’ said Fairhead.

‘Well, we certainly hope so,’ said Daniel.

‘It’ll be superhyperfun,’ said Sophie.

‘Can’t stay, I’m afraid,’ said Fluke. ‘Wife and children, Christmas, unfortunately. Got to get back before curfew.’

The cricket was indeed a fiasco. In the time-honoured tradition of cricket, nobody won. It was generally agreed that Mrs McCosh was by far the most talented player. She had struck a ball into the Pendennises’ garden, and broken a window in their greenhouse. Afterwards they played billiards with table-tennis balls, employing the butt ends of golf clubs for cues, and then they danced to Daniel’s gramophone. At the end Caractacus came and put on his own show, chasing a golf ball all about the room, and then climbing up the curtain and perching on the pelmet, where he batted at the ostrich feather with which Mr McCosh was teasing him.

COOKIE WAS WITH Mrs McCosh, going through the next week’s menus at the dining-room table, and down in the kitchen Constable Dusty Miller was ladling heaps of sugar into his mug of tea.

‘Here, hold on!’ exclaimed Millicent. ‘That’s too much! You and Chalky do us out of sugar every week, and every week Cookie has to make up a reason for where it’s all gone. And you’re going to have your teeth rotted out.’

‘Can’t ’elp it. Got a sweet tooth. I like sweet things. That’s why I like you.’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘I said you’re sweet,’ replied Dusty.

‘Give over,’ said Millicent, ‘or I’ll belt you one right round the lughole.’

‘Ooh, scary,’ said Dusty Miller

He stirred his tea thoughtfully, and asked, ‘Why do you think I keep coming ’ere, love?’

‘’Cause you’re a lazy copper who likes to drink a cuppa tea halfway round his beat, that’s why. And you like the drop scones.’