The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [458]
‘You terrify me, François, when you say such things. Except for Matthew you are the first to arrive so you must pay the penalty and come and sit down here with us for a few minutes … though I can see that what you have to tell us will scare us out of our wits.’
‘My apologies,’ murmured Dupigny with the exquisite tact of the diplomat and man of the world. He was evidently apologizing not for having cast Mrs Blackett into a state of alarm but for having arrived too early, for thus he had interpreted the words ‘first to arrive’.
Mrs Blackett, leading the way across the room, said over her shoulder: ‘How smart you look, François! I’m so glad to see you are managing in spite of your difficulties.’
In the meantime, Monty had slipped into the chair beside Matthew vacated by his father, and in a malicious whisper explained to him that Dupigny was penniless! a beggar! a total pauper! and that his mother, of course, knew very well that she was being pursued across the drawing-room not only by Dupigny but by his entire wardrobe as well, for the fellow was still clad in every single garment he had been wearing when he had slipped away from Saigon with General Catroux, give or take the odd pair of shorts or shoes he had been able to borrow off Major Archer who luckily for Dupigny happened to be an old chum of his from the Great War.
While Matthew listened to all this and watched Dupigny stoop to brush Joan’s knuckles with his smiling lips, he could not help wondering whether he would ever find anything in common with Monty. Dupigny looked up, still smiling, his attentions to Joan’s knuckles complete.
‘Well, François, what’s the joke?’
‘I smile because I remember that yesterday for the first time in my life I have been mistaken pour un macchabée … for a corpse.’
‘For a corpse?’ cried Joan, suddenly becoming vivacious again. She was evidently a willing victim of Dupigny’s charm and polished manners. ‘I don’t believe you, François. What a terrible liar he is!’ she grumbled to her mother.
‘But precisely, for a corpse!’ Dupigny struck an attitude. ‘I am just leaving the bungalow when a Chinese gentleman approaches and says to me: “Tuan, are you dead?” I assure him that to the best of my knowledge I am still alive …’ Dupigny paused to acknowledge the smiles of his audience.
‘ “But, Tuan,” says our Chinese friend, “are you not then seriously wounded?” On the contrary I tell him that I am never feeling better in my life … “But then, Tuan,” he says, almost in tears, “you must at least be ‘walking wounded’ otherwise you would not be here in this street!” ’
‘I know, it was an air-raid practice!’ exclaimed Joan. ‘I bet your Chinaman was wearing an ARP armband and a tin hat. But I thought that for corpses they always used Boy Scouts. Does this mean that they are now using grown men?’
‘Hélas! Every day they grow more ambitious!’
New arrivals had been shown into the room in the meantime and Mrs Blackett set off once more towards the door, stumbling against a low foot-stool on the way, for the truth was that her lovely blue eyes were far-sighted and she should have worn glasses. Two officers had just entered. One of these newcomers was Air Chief-Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, a solidly built gentleman in his early sixties whose appearance suggested slightly baffled good nature. He had a square head, bald on top and with very thin hair plastered down at the sides above large, protruding ears. Beneath his white walrus moustache his open mouth lent him the air of wary incomprehension one sometimes sees in people who are not quite sure they have heard you correctly. Each of his powerful forearms cradled a shaggy bundle of documents which he was now trying to shuffle into a single bundle so that he might grasp the hand of Mrs Blackett. But in doing so a few sheets detached themselves and subsided in a series of gentle arcs to the floor. As he stooped to retrieve them, a few more slipped from his grasp and his air of bewilderment increased. At his side a tall, saturnine staff officer in the uniform of a Major-General