The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [249]
‘There’s no hurry’ said Mountolive. He felt that his real life now stretched before him; he was about to be reborn. ‘I don’t see my exequatur coming through for a time yet. And so on.’
But his mind was already racing upon a parallel track, saying: ‘In summer the whole Embassy moves to Alexandria, to summer quarters. If I could time my arrival….’
And then, side by side with this sense of exhilaration, came a twinge of characteristic meanness. Mountolive like most people who have nobody on whom to lavish affection, tended towards meanness in money matters. Unreasonable as it was, he suddenly felt a pang of depression at the thought of the costly dress uniform which his new position would demand. Only last week there had
been a catalogue from Skinners showing a greatly increased scale for Foreign Service uniforms.
He got up and went into the room next door to see the private secretary. It was empty. An electric fire glowed. A lighted cigarette smoked in the ashtray beside the two bells marked respective ly
‘ His Ex. ’ and ‘ Her Ex’ . On the pad beside them the Secretary had written in his round feminine hand ‘Not to be woken before eleven.’ This obviously referred to ‘ His Ex. ’. As for ‘ Her Ex. ’, she had only managed to last six months in Moscow before retiring to the amenities of Nice where she awaited her husband upon his retirement. Mountolive stubbed out the cigarette.
It would be useless to call on his Chief before midday, for the morning in Russia afflicted Sir Louis with a splenetic apathy which often made him unresponsive to ideas; and while he could not, in all conscience, do anything to qualify Mountolive’s good fortune, he might easily show pique at not having been consulted according to custom by the Principal Private Secretary. Anyway. He retired to his now empty office and plunged into the latest copy of The Times, waiting with ill-concealed impatience for the Chancery clock to mark out midday with its jangling whirrs and gasps. Then he went downstairs and slipped into the Residence again through the padded door, walking with his swift limping walk across the polished floors with their soft archipelagos of neutral rug. Every-thing smelt of disuse and Mansion polish; in the curtains a smell of cigar-smoke. At every window a screen of tossing snowflakes. Merritt the valet was starting up the staircase with a tray con-taining a cocktail shaker full of Martini and a single glass. He was a pale heavily-built man who cultivated the gravity of a church-warden while he moved about his tasks in the Residence. He stopped as Mountolive drew level and said hoarsely: ‘He’s just up and dressing for a duty lunch, sir.’ Mountolive nodded and passed him, taking the stairs two at a time. The servant turned back to the buttery to add a second glass to his tray.
Sir Louis whistled dispiritedly at his own reflection in the great mirror as he dressed himself. ‘Ah, my boy’ he said vaguely as Mountolive appeared behind him. ‘Just dressing. I know, I know. It’s my unlucky day. Chancery rang me at eleven. So you have done it at last. Congratulations.’
Mountolive sat down at the foot of the bed with relief to find the news taken so lightly. His Chief went on wrestling with a tie and a starched collar as he said: ‘I suppose you’ll want to go off at once, eh? It’s a loss to us.’
‘It would be convenient’ admitted Mountolive slowly.
‘A pity. I was hoping you’d see me out. But anyway’ he made a flamboyant gesture with a disengaged hand ‘you’ve done it. From tricorne and dirk to bicorne and sword — the final apotheosis.’
He groped for cuff-links and went on thoughtfully. ‘Of course, you could stay a bit; it’ll take time to get agrément. Then you’ll have to go to the Palace and kiss hands and all that sort of thing. Eh?’
‘I have quite a lot of leave due’ said Mountolive with the faintest trace of firmness underlying his