The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [240]
“While it is true that the inhabitants eat each other, nevertheless the food consumption per head is remarkably high.” ’ He broke off suddenly and sitting down to lace his shoes said: ‘Oh, David my boy, who the devil am I going to be able to talk to when you go? Eh? You’ll be walking about in your ludicrous uniform with an osprey feather in your hat looking like the mating plumage of some rare Indian bird and I — I shall be trotting backwards and forwards to the Kremlin to see those dull beasts.’
The cocktails were rather strong. They embarked upon a second, and Mountolive said: ‘Actually, I came wondering if I could buy your old uniform, unless it’s bespoke. I could get it altered.’
‘Uniform?’ said Sir Louis. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘They are so fearfully expensive.’
‘I know. And they’ve gone up. But you’d have to send mine back to the taxidermist for an overhaul. And they never fit round the neck, you know. All that braid stuff. I’m a frogging or two loose I think. Thank God this isn’t a monarchy — one good thing. Frock coats in order, what? Well I don’t know.’
They sat pondering upon the question for a long moment. Then Sir Louis said: ‘What would you offer me?’ His eye narrowed. Mountolive deliberated for a few moments before saying ‘Thirty pounds’ in an unusually energetic and decisive tone. Sir Louis threw up his hands and simulated incoherence. ‘Only thirty?
It cost me….’
‘I know’ said Mountolive.
‘Thirty pounds’ meditated his Chief, hovering upon the fringes of outrage. ‘I think, dear boy ——’
‘The sword is a bit bent’ said Mountolive obstinately.
‘Not too badly’ said Sir Louis. ‘The King of Siam pinched it in the door of his private motor-car. Honourable scar.’ He smiled once more and continued dressing, humming to himself. He took an absurd delight in this bargaining. Suddenly he turned round.
‘Make it fifty’ he said. Mountolive shook his head thoughtfully.
‘That is too much, sir.’
‘Forty-five.’
Mountolive rose and took a turn up and down the room, amused by the old man’s evident delight in this battle of wills. ‘I’ll give you forty’ he said at last and sat down once more with delib-eration. Sir Louis brushed his silver hair furiously with his heavy tortoiseshell-backed brushes. ‘Have you any drink in your cellar?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes, I have.”
‘Well then, you can have it for forty if you throw in a couple of cases of … what have you? Have you a respectable champagne?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Two — no, three cases of same.’
They both laughed and Mountolive said ‘It’s a hard bargain you drive.’ Sir Louis was delighted by the compliment. They shook hands upon it and the Ambassador was about to turn back to the cocktail tray when his junior said: ‘Forgive me, sir. Your third.’
‘Well?’ said the old diplomat with a well-simulated start and a puzzled air. ‘What of it?’ He knew perfectly well. Mountolive bit his lip. ‘You expressly asked me to warn you.’ He said it reproachfully. Sir Louis threw himself further back with more simulated surprise. ‘What’s wrong with a final boneshaker before lunch, eh?’
‘You ’ll only hum’ said Mountolive sombrely.
‘Oh, pouf, dear boy!’ said Sir Louis.
‘You will, sir.’
Within the last year, and on the eve of retirement, the Am-bassador had begun to drink rather too heavily — though never quite reaching the borders of incoherence. In the same period a new and somewhat surprising tic had developed. Enlivened by one cocktail too many he had formed the habit of uttering a low
continuous humming noise at receptions which had earned him a rather questionable notoriety. But he himself had been unaware of this habit, and indeed at first indignantly denied its existence. He found to his surprise that he was in the habit of humming, over and over again, in basso profundo, a passage from the Dead March in Saul. It summed up, appropriately enough, a lifetime of acute boredom spent in the company of friendless officials and empty dignitaries. In a way, it was his response perhaps to a situation which he had subconsciously recognized as intolerable for a number of years; and he was grateful that Mountolive had had the courage to bring the habit to his notice and to help him overcome it. Nevertheless, he always felt bound to protest in spite of himself at his junior