The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [251]
‘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’s reminder. ‘ Hum? ’ he repeated now, indignantly pouting, ‘I never heard such nonsense.’ But he put down the glass and returned to the mirror for a fina l criticism of his toilet. ‘Well, anyway’ he said, ‘time is up.’ He pressed a bell and Merritt appeared with a gardenia on a plate. Sir Louis was some-what pedantic about flowers and always insisted on wearing his favourite one in his buttonhole when in tenue de ville. His wife flew up boxes of them from Nice and Merritt kept them in the buttery refrigerator, to be rationed out religious ly.
‘Well, David’ he said, and patted Mountolive’s arm with affection. ‘I owe you many a good turn. No humming today, however appropriate.’
They walked slowly down the long curving staircase and into the hall where Mountolive saw his Chief gloved and coated before signalling the official car by house-telephone. ‘When do you want to go?’ The old voice trembled with genuine regret.
‘By the first of next month, sir. That leaves time to wind up and say good-bye.’
‘You won’t stay and see me out?’
‘If you order me to, sir.’
‘You know I wouldn’t do that’ said Sir Louis, shaking his white head, though in the past he had done worse things. ‘Never.’
They shook hands warmly once more while Merritt walked past them to throw back the heavy front door, for his ears had caught the slither and scrape of tyre-chains on the frosty drive outside. A blast of snow and wind burst upon them. The carpets rose off the floor and subsided again. The Ambassador donned his great
fur helmet and thrust his hands into the carmuff. Then, bowed double, he stalked out to the wintry greyness. Mountolive