The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [428]
But two days in Alex and an injection and presto! The bloody thing dears up again! I say, Darley, what fun to meet again. There’s so much to tell you. This war!’ He was bubbling over with high spirits. ‘God, this water is a treat. I’ve been revelling.’
‘You look in tremendous shape.’
‘I am. I am.’ He smacked himself exuberantly on the buttocks
‘Golly though, it is good to come into Alex. Contrasts make you appreciate things so much better. Those tanks get so hot you feel like frying whitebait. Reach my drink, there’s a good chap.’ On the floor stood a tall glass of whisky and soda with an ice cube in it. He shook the glass, holding it to his ear like a child. ‘Listen to the ice tink ling’ he cried in ecstasy. ‘Music to the soul, the tinkle of ice.’ He raised his glass, wrinkled up his nose at me and drank my health. ‘You look in quite good shape, too’ he said, and his blue
eyes twinkled with a new mischievous light. ‘Now for some clothes and then … my dear chap, I’m rich. I’ll give you a slap-up dinner at the Petit Coin. No refusals, I’ll not be baulked. I particularly wanted to see you and talk to you. I have news.’
He positively skipped into the bedroom to dress and I sat on Pombal’s bed to keep him company while he did so. His high spirits were quite infectious. He seemed hardly able to keep still. A thousand thoughts and ideas bubbled up inside him which he wanted to express simultaneously. He capered down the stairs into the street like a schoolboy, taking the last flight at a single bound. I thought he would break into a dance along Rue Fuad.
‘But seriously’ he said, squeezing my elbow so hard that it hurt.
‘ Seriously, life is wonderful’ and as if to illustrate his seriousness he burst into ringing laughter. ‘When I think how we used to brood and worry.’ Apparently he included me in this new euphoric outlook on life. ‘How slowly we took everything, I feel ashamed to remember it!’
At the Petit Coin we secured a corner table after an amiable altercation with a naval lieutenant, and he at once took hold of Menotti and commanded champagne to be brought. Where the devil had he got this new laughing authoritative manner which instantly commanded sympathetic respect without giving offence?
‘The desert!’ he said, as if in answer to my unspoken question.
‘The desert, Darley, old boy. That is something to be seen.’
From a capacious pocket he produced a copy of the Pickwick Papers. ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I mustn’t forget to get this copy replaced. Or the crew will bloody well fry me.’ It was a sodden, dog-eared little book with a bullet hole in the cover, smeared with oil. ‘It’s our only library, and some bastard must have wiped himself on the middle third. I’ve sworn to replace it. Actually there’s a copy at the flat. I don’t suppose Pombal would mind my pinching it. It’s absurd. When there isn’t any action we he about reading it aloud to one another, under the stars! Absurd, my dear chap, but then everything is more absurd. More and more absurd every day.’
‘You sound so happy’ I said, not without a certain envy.
‘Yes’ he said in a smaller voice, and suddenly, for the first time, became relatively serious. ‘I am. Darley, let me make you a con-fidence. Promise not to groan.’
‘I promise.’
He leaned forward and said in a whisper, his eyes twinkling,
‘I’ve become a writer at last!’ Then suddenly he gave his ringing laugh. ‘You promised not to groan’ he said.
‘I didn’t groan.’
‘Well, you looked groany and supercilious. The proper response would have been to shout “Hurrah!” ’
‘Don’t shout so loud or they’ll ask us to leave.’
‘Sorry. It came over me.’
He drank a large bumper of champagne with the air of some-one toasting himself and leaned back in his chair, gazing at me quizzically with the same mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes.
‘What have you written?’ I asked.
‘Nothing’ he said, smiling. ‘Not a word as yet. It’s all up here.’
He pointed a brown finger at his temple. ‘But now at least I know it is. Somehow whether I do or don