Absent in the Spring Read online

  Joan privately doubted very much whether there were. It seemed to her that Blanche’s decadence was a tragedy of the first water.

  Blanche went on:

  ‘Hope you have a good journey, but I rather doubt it. Looks to me as though the rains are starting. If so, you may be stuck for days, miles from anywhere.’

  ‘I hope not. It will upset all my train reservations.’

  ‘Oh well, desert travel is seldom according to schedule. So long as you get across the wadis all right, the rest will be easy. And of course the drivers take plenty of food and water along. Still it gets a bit boring to be stuck somewhere with nothing to do but think.’

  Joan smiled.

  ‘It might be rather a pleasant change. You know, one never has time as a rule to relax at all. I’ve often wished I could have just one week with really nothing to do.’

  ‘I should have thought you could have had that whenever you liked?’

  ‘Oh no, my dear. I’m a very busy woman in my small way. I’m the Secretary of the Country Gardens Association – And I’m on the committee of our local hospital. And there’s the Institute – and the Guides. And I take quite an active part in politics. What with all that and running the house and then Rodney and I go out a good deal and have people in to see us. It’s so good for a lawyer to have plenty of social background, I always think. And then I’m very fond of my garden and like to do quite a good deal in it myself. Do you know, Blanche, that there’s hardly a moment, except perhaps a quarter of an hour before dinner, when I can really sit down and rest? And to keep up with one’s reading is quite a task.’

  ‘You seem to stand up to it all pretty well,’ murmured Blanche, her eyes on the other’s unlined face.

  ‘Well, to wear out is better than to rust out! And I must admit I’ve always had marvellous health. I really am thankful for that. But all the same it would be wonderful to feel that one had a whole day or even two days with nothing to do but think.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Blanche, ‘what you’d think about?’

  Joan laughed. It was a pleasant, tinkling, little sound.

  ‘There are always plenty of things to think about, aren’t there?’ she said.

  Blanche grinned.

  ‘One can always think of one’s sins!’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Joan assented politely though without amusement.

  Blanche eyed her keenly.

  ‘Only that wouldn’t give you occupation long!’

  She frowned and went on abruptly:

  ‘You’d have to go on from them to think of your good deeds. And all the blessings of your life! Hm – I don’t know. Might be rather dull. I wonder,’ she paused, ‘if you’d nothing to think about but yourself for days and days I wonder what you’d find out about yourself –’

  Joan looked sceptical and faintly amused.

  ‘Would one find out anything one didn’t know before?’

  Blanche said slowly:

  ‘I think one might …’ She gave a sudden shiver. ‘I shouldn’t like to try it.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Joan, ‘some people have an urge towards the contemplative life. I’ve never been able to understand that myself. The mystic point of view is very difficult to appreciate. I’m afraid I haven’t got that kind of religious temperament. It always seems to me to be rather extreme, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘It’s certainly simpler,’ said Blanche, ‘to make use of the shortest prayer that is known.’ And in answer to Joan’s inquiring glance she said abruptly, ‘“God be merciful to me, a sinner.” That covers pretty well everything.’

  Joan felt slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it certainly does.’

  Blanche burst out laughing.

  ‘The trouble with you, Joan, is that you’re not a sinner. That cuts you off from prayer! Now I’m well equipped. It seems to me sometimes that I’ve never ceased doing the things that I ought not to have done.’

  Joan was silent because she didn’t know quite what to say.

  Blanche resumed again in a lighter tone:

  ‘Oh well, that’s the way of the world. You quit when you ought to stick, and you take on a thing that you’d better leave alone; one minute life’s so lovely you can hardly believe it’s true – and immediately after that you’re going through a hell of misery and suffering! When things are going well you think they’ll last for ever – and they never do – and when you’re down under you think you’ll never come up and breathe again. That’s what life is, isn’t it?’

  It was so entirely alien to any conception Joan had of life or to life as she had known it that she was unable to make what she felt would be an adequate response.

  With a brusque movement Blanche rose to her feet.

  ‘You’re half asleep, Joan. So am I. And we’ve got an early start. It’s been nice seeing you.’

  The two women stood a minute, their hands clasped. Blanche said quickly and awkwardly, with a sudden, rough tenderness in her voice:

  ‘Don’t worry about your Barbara. She’ll be all right – I’m sure of it. Bill Wray is a good sort, you know – and there’s the kid and everything. It was just that she was very young and the kind of life out here – well, it goes to a girl’s head sometimes.’

  Joan was conscious of nothing but complete bewilderment.

  She said sharply:

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Blanche merely looked at her admiringly.

  ‘That’s the good old school tie spirit! Never admit anything. You really haven’t changed a bit, Joan. By the way I owe you twenty-five pounds. Never thought of it until this minute.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother about that.’

  ‘No fear.’ Blanche laughed. ‘I suppose I meant to pay it back, but after all if one ever does lend money to people one knows quite well one will never see one’s money again. So I haven’t worried much. You were a good sport, Joan – that money was a godsend.’

  ‘One of the children had to have an operation, didn’t he?’

  ‘So they thought. But it turned out not to be necessary after all. So we spent the money on a bender and got a roll-top desk for Tom as well. He’d had his eye on it for a long time.’

  Moved by a sudden memory, Joan asked:

  ‘Did he ever write his book on Warren Hastings?’

  Blanche beamed at her.

  ‘Fancy your remembering that! Yes, indeed, a hundred and twenty thousand words.’

  ‘Was it published?’

  ‘Of course not! After that Tom started on a life of Benjamin Franklin. That was even worse. Funny taste, wasn’t it? I mean such dull people. If I wrote a life, it would be of someone like Cleopatra, some sexy piece – or Casanova, say, something spicy. Still, we can’t all have the same ideas. Tom got a job again in an office – not so good as the other. I’m always glad, though, that he had his fun. It’s awfully important, don’t you think, for people to do what they really want to do?’

  ‘It rather depends,’ said Joan, ‘on circumstances. One has to take so many things into consideration.’

  ‘Haven’t you done what you wanted to do?’

  ‘I?’ Joan was taken aback.

  ‘Yes, you,’ said Blanche. ‘You wanted to marry Rodney Scudamore, didn’t you? And you wanted children? And a comfortable home.’ She laughed and added, ‘And to live happily ever afterwards, world without end, Amen.’

  Joan laughed too, relieved at the lighter tone the conversation had taken.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been very lucky, I know.’

  And then, afraid that that last remark had been tactless when confronted by the ruin and bad luck that had been Blanche’s lot in life, she added hurriedly:

  ‘I really must go up now. Good night – and it’s been marvellous seeing you again.’

  She squeezed Blanche’s hand warmly (would Blanche expect her to kiss her? Surely not.) and ran lightly up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Poor Blanche, thought Joan as she u
ndressed, neatly laying and folding her clothes, putting out a fresh pair of stockings for the morning. Poor Blanche. It’s really too tragic.

  She slipped into her pyjamas and started to brush her hair.

  Poor Blanche. Looking so awful and so coarse.

  She was ready for bed now, but paused irresolutely before getting in.

  One didn’t, of course, say one’s prayers every night. In fact it was quite a long time since Joan had said a prayer of any kind. And she didn’t even go to church very often.

  But one did, of course, believe.

  And she had a sudden odd desire to kneel down now by the side of this rather uncomfortable looking bed (such nasty cotton sheets, thank goodness she had got her own soft pillow with her) and well – say them properly – like a child.

  The thought made her feel rather shy and uncomfortable.

  She got quickly into bed and pulled up the covers. She picked up the book that she had laid on the little table by the bed head, The Memoirs of Lady Catherine Dysart – really most entertainingly written – a very witty account of mid-Victorian times.

  She read a line or two but found she could not concentrate.

  I’m too tired, she thought.

  She laid down the book and switched off the light.

  Again the thought of prayer came to her. What was it that Blanche had said so outrageously – ‘that cuts you off from prayer.’ Really, what did she mean?

  Joan formed a prayer quickly in her mind – a prayer of isolated words strung together.

  God – thank thee – poor Blanche – thank thee that I am not like that – great mercies – all my blessings – and especially not like poor Blanche – poor Blanche – really dreadful. Her own fault of course – dreadful – quite a shock – thank God – I am different – poor Blanche …

  Joan fell asleep.

  Chapter Two

  It was raining when Joan Scudamore left the rest house the following morning, a fine gentle rain that seemed somehow incongruous in this part of the world.

  She found that she was the only passenger going west – a sufficiently uncommon occurrence, it appeared, although there was not much traffic this time of year. There had been a large convoy on the preceding Friday.

  A battered looking touring car was waiting with a European driver and a native relief driver. The manager of the rest house was on the steps in the grey dawn of the morning to hand Joan in, yell at the Arabs until they adjusted the baggage to his satisfaction, and to wish Mademoiselle, as he called all his lady guests, a safe and comfortable journey. He bowed magnificently and handed her a small cardboard container in which was her lunch.

  The driver yelled out cheerily:

  ‘Bye bye, Satan, see you tomorrow night or next week – and it looks more like next week.’

  The car started off. It wound through the streets of the oriental city with its grotesque and unexpected blocks of occidental architecture. The horn blared, donkeys swerved aside, children ran. They drove out through the western gate and on to a broad, unequally paved road that looked important enough to run to the world’s end.

  Actually it petered out abruptly after two kilometres and an irregular track took its place.

  In good weather it was, Joan knew, about seven hours’ run to Tell Abu Hamid which was the present terminus of the Turkish railway. The train from Stamboul arrived there this morning and would go back again at eight-thirty this evening. There was a small rest house at Tell Abu Hamid for the convenience of travellers, where they were served with what meals they might need. They should meet the convoy coming east about half-way along the track.

  The going was now very uneven. The car leapt and jumped and Joan was thrown up and down in her seat.

  The driver called back that he hoped she was all right. It was a bumpy bit of track but he wanted to hurry as much as possible in case he had difficulty crossing the two wadis they had to negotiate.

  From time to time he looked anxiously up at the sky.

  The rain began to fall faster and the car began to do a series of skids, zigzagging to and fro and making Joan feel slightly sick.

  They reached the first wadi about eleven. There was water in it, but they got across and after a slight peril of sticking on the hill up the other side drew out of it successfully. About two kilometres farther on they ran into soft ground and stuck there.

  Joan slipped on her mackintosh coat and got out, opening her box of lunch and eating as she walked up and down and watched the two men working, digging with spades, flinging jacks at each other, putting boards they had brought with them under the wheels. They swore and toiled and the wheels spun angrily in the air. It seemed to Joan an impossible task, but the driver assured her that it wasn’t a bad place at all. Finally, with unnerving suddenness the wheels bit and roared, and the car quivered forward on to drier ground.

  A little farther on they encountered two cars coming in the opposite direction. All three stopped and the drivers held a consultation, giving each other recommendations and advice.

  In the other cars were a woman and a baby, a young French officer, an elderly Armenian and two commercial looking Englishmen.

  Presently they went on. They stuck twice more and again the long, laborious business of jacking up and digging out had to be undertaken. The second wadi was more difficult of negotiation than the first one. It was dusk when they came to it and the water was rushing through it.

  Joan asked anxiously:

  ‘Will the train wait?’

  ‘They usually give an hour’s grace. They can make up that on the run, but they won’t delay beyond nine-thirty. However the track gets better from now on. Different kind of ground – more open desert.’

  They had a bad time clearing the wadi – the farther bank was sheer slippery mud. It was dark when the car at last reached dry ground. From then on, the going was better but when they got to Tell Abu Hamid it was a quarter past ten and the train to Stamboul had gone.

  Joan was so completely done up that she hardly noticed her surroundings.

  She stumbled into the rest house dining-room with its trestle tables, refused food but asked for tea and then went straight to the dimly lit, bleak room with its three iron beds and taking out bare necessaries, she tumbled into bed and slept like a log.

  She awoke the next morning her usual cool competent self. She sat up in bed and looked at her watch. It was half past nine. She got up, dressed and came out into the dining-room. An Indian with an artistic turban wrapped round his head appeared and she ordered breakfast. Then she strolled to the door and looked out.

  With a slight humorous grimace she acknowledged to herself that she had indeed arrived at the middle of nowhere.

  This time, she reflected, it looked like taking about double the time.

  On her journey out she had flown from Cairo to Baghdad. This route was new to her. It was actually seven days from Baghdad to London – three days in the train from London to Stamboul, two days on to Aleppo, another night to the end of the railway at Tell Abu Hamid, then a day’s motoring, a night in a rest house and another motor drive to Kirkuk and on by train to Baghdad.

  There was no sign of rain this morning. The sky was blue and cloudless, and all around was even coloured golden brown sandy dust. From the rest house itself a tangle of barbed wire enclosed a refuse dump of tins and a space where some skinny chickens ran about squawking loudly. Clouds of flies had settled on such tins as had recently contained nourishment. Something that looked like a bundle of dirty rags suddenly got up and proved to be an Arab boy.

  A little distance away, across another tangle of barbed wire was a squat building that was evidently the station with something that Joan took to be either an artesian well or a big water tank beside it. On the far horizon to the north was the faint outline of a range of hills.

  Apart from that, nothing. No landmarks, no buildings, no vegetation, no human kind.

  A station, a railway track, some hens, what seemed to be a disproportionate amount
of barbed wire – and that was all.

  Really, Joan thought, it was very amusing. Such an odd place to be held up.

  The Indian servant came out and said that the Memsahib’s breakfast was ready.

  Joan turned and went in. The characteristic atmosphere of a rest house, gloom, mutton fat, paraffin and Flit greeted her with a sense of rather distasteful familiarity.

  There was coffee and milk (tinned milk), a whole dish of fried eggs, some hard little rounds of toast, a dish of jam, and some rather doubtful looking stewed prunes.

  Joan ate with a good appetite. And presently the Indian reappeared and asked what time the Memsahib would like lunch.

  Joan said not for a long time – and it was agreed that half past one would be a satisfactory hour.

  The trains, as she knew, went three days a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It was Tuesday morning, so she would not be able to leave until tomorrow night. She spoke to the man asking if that was correct.

  ‘That right, Memsahib. Miss train last night. Very unfortunate. Track very bad, rain very heavy in night. That means no cars can go to and fro from here to Mosul for some days.’

  ‘But the trains will be all right?’

  Joan was not interested in the Mosul track.

  ‘Oh yes, train come all right tomorrow morning. Go back tomorrow night.’

  Joan nodded. She asked about the car which had brought her.

  ‘Go off this morning early. Driver hope get through. But I think not. I think him stick one, two days on way there.’

  Again without much interest Joan thought it highly probable.

  The man went on giving information.

  ‘That station, Memsahib, over there.’

  Joan said that she had thought, somehow, that it might be the station.

  ‘Turkish station. Station in Turkey. Railway Turkish. Other side of wire, see. That wire frontier.’

  Joan looked respectfully at the frontier and thought what very odd things frontiers were.

  The Indian said happily: