“That’s very nice, darling,” I snapped. “And what am I supposed to do? Sit in the furnished bed-sitting-room and darn your stockings?”
It was rude and unpleasant enough, but it was only the beginning. I said a lot of things I didn’t mean; pompous things about a man having a certain substratum of “self-respect” to consider and the ignominy of living on a wife’s earnings, none of which bore the slightest relation to what she had meant.
She sat tight-lipped and silent until I had finished. Then she said: “I didn’t think you could be such an ass.” With that she got up and walked out of the shop.
Of course, we made it up that evening. But there was a reservation about the reconciliation of which we were both conscious. When I left that night, she put on her coat and walked with me a little way.
“You know, Nicky,” she said after a while, “you’ve done a terrible lot of apologising to-night. I feel rather bad about it. I know very well it’s all my fault really. If I’d had a grain of imagination I’d have known that you’d got enough to worry about without having a confounded nitwit of a girl talking marriage at you to make it worse.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What on earth are you getting at, Claire?”
“Go on walking, darling, and I’ll tell you.” We went on. “You remember that engineering paper you left in the hall the other night?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“I had a look through it, Nicky. You’d marked an advertisement in the Appointments Vacant Section. Do you remember it?”
“Yes, vaguely.”
“Well…?”
I spluttered. “Good heavens, Claire, you’re not suggesting…?”
“Why not? It fits your qualifications exactly. It might have been designed specially for you.” And then, as I began to expostulate once more: “No, listen, Nicky. It would do you good.”
I halted again. “Now you listen to me, sweet. There are some things which are fantastic and absurd, and this is one of them.”
She laughed. “All right, but here”-she produced a piece of paper from her bag and thrust it into a pocket of my overcoat-“I tore it out in case you might want to change your mind. Good night, darling.”
When at last I continued my walk to the station, I had completely forgotten about the piece of paper.
A week went by. Those seven days were the most depressing I have ever spent. For the first six of them nothing at all happened. Then, on the morning of the seventh, I received a letter from a famous engineering firm in answer to an application of mine in reply to an advertisement for a works manager in one of their smaller factories. I was to call at their offices at three o’clock that day.
At three o’clock I was there. With me in the reception room were two other men. Both were middle-aged. Both, I guessed, were there on the same business as I was. I was right.
I was the last to be seen by the works director. He greeted me with an air of patient amiability.
“Oh yes”-he glanced at my letter lying on the spotless blotting-pad in front of him-“Mr. Marlow, isn’t it? Yes, yes. Now, I asked you to call for a special reason. Quite frankly we consider you a little too young for consideration in connection with the post under discussion at the moment.” He primped his moustache wearily. I waited. “However,” he went on, “we could use a young, unmarried man with your qualifications in connection with an important contract we have just secured. Mind you, I’m not making you a definite offer. If you’re interested we’ll discuss it further. The-er-salary, naturally, is not very large. You probably know how bad things are at the moment, eh? And, of course, it would mean signing on for four years. Still, I don’t suppose that would worry a young man like you. It’s a great place, Bolivia, a great…”
I interrupted the flow. “Where did you say?”
He looked surprised. “Bolivia. The Chaco war,” he went on confidently, “showed them the need for relying upon their own resources in time of war. It is a question of establishing two factories and putting them on an economical production basis. The experience alone…”
But I had risen. I could feel that I had become very red in the face. “Thank you very much,” I said curtly. “I am afraid, however, that my time is valuable this afternoon. I must apologise for wasting yours. I feel sure that you will find the man you want quite easily.”
He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Naturally. Good afternoon. Pull the door to behind you as you go, will you?”
Outside, I bought an evening paper, crossed to a teashop and ordered a cup of tea. Then I noticed that, seated at the next table was one of the men I had seen in the reception room. On a sudden impulse, I leaned across to him.
“Excuse me, sir. I hope you’ll forgive my asking; but, as a matter of interest, do you mind telling me if you have just been offered a post in South America?”
He looked startled. He was a grey-haired man with a heavy, intelligent face and large, capable hands. He examined me suspiciously. Then he grinned.
“So they tried that on you too, did they? Well, I don’t mind telling you. He did offer me a job in South America-at three quid a week. Said I was too old for the job advertised. Bolivia and three quid a week! Me! I told him what he could do with it. I don’t think he liked it much.”
“I suppose, then, that the other man got the real job.”
“Real job?” He laughed derisively. “There isn’t any real job, my friend. That’s just a way of getting good men cheap. I’ve seen that game before. They cut their price to compete with the United States and the Monroe Doctrine. Then they have to make their precious profit. I might have fallen for it, but luckily I’ve got a job of sorts, selling small tools.” He indicated an attache-case on the chair beside him. “Cheap Jap stuff.”
I offered him a cigarette. We went on talking. Bit by bit I learned something of his career; and, as I listened to the quiet, almost casual account of the work he had done, I knew that here was a man beside whose qualifications and experience mine were second-rate. This man knew his job supremely well. Other things being equal, no management with any sense would have hesitated to choose him in preference to me. And yet, here he was selling small tools, “Cheap Jap stuff.” When I asked him how business was, he smiled.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said ruefully; “I’m not much good as a traveller. It’s a very difficult thing to be good at. I’ve no patience, very little tact, and I’m always getting people’s backs up by showing them how they ought to run their businesses. Besides, I can’t help telling them just how bad my stuff is. I’m trying to improve, but it’s tough going.” He called for his bill. “It’s time I was off. Glad to have met you.”
When he had gone I tried to read my evening paper. Herr Hitler had reaffirmed the principle of the Rome- Berlin collaboration. Signor Mussolini had made another speech from the balcony of the Palazzo di Venezia. The chairman of an armaments combine had announced complacently that profits for the previous year had proved extremely satisfactory and had expressed confidence in the future of the company. Another Balkan state had gone Fascist. A Croat living in the Paris suburbs had dismembered his mistress’s body with a hatchet. A banker had welcomed improved prospects for foreign lending. There were two pictures on the front page: one of two grinning and embarrassed soldiers riding on a new type of tank, the other of a famous statesman, looking like an apprehensive vulture with a fishing-rod in one hand and a very small fish in the other. On page four was an article entitled: “In thy strength, O Britain…” by an ex-naval officer who, I happened to know, was also a director of a naval construction yard.
I put the paper down, finished my tea and felt in my pocket for a match to light a cigarette. My fingers encountered the piece of paper. I drew it out, smoothed it on the table and read the advertisement through again very carefully.
REQUIRED by Midland firm. Thoroughly experienced production engineer to take charge of Continental office. Must speak fluent Italian and have had experience of high-production practice. Language qualification essential. Generous salary and commission to right man. Excellent prospects. Apply, stating age, experience (in detail) and when available, to Box 536X.
I don’t know what had possessed me to mark it. Maybe it was the bit about the Italian that had struck me as odd. After my parents had died I had shared a room with an Italian fellow-student who had taught me his language in exchange for mine. It had all been part of a plan to spend our summer vacation walking south from Naples. The plan had never matured. We had quarrelled a week before we had been due to start. But my Italian had remained, nourished by an occasional novel from Hachettes and, lately, vague ideas about a honeymoon in Rome.
I put the paper back in my pocket. It was out of the question, of course. Absurd. Claire, bless her heart, was
