The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

And so there it is. Don’t mistake my tone for flippancy. Medicine has taught me to look on things with ironic detachment and so conserve the powers of feeling which should by rights be directed towards those we love and which are wasted on those who die. Or so I think.

‘What on earth, after all, is one to make of life with its grotesque twists and turns? And how, I wonder, has the artist the temerity to try and impose a pattern upon it which he infects with his own meanings? (This is aimed slightly in your direction) I suppose you would reply that it is the duty of the pilot to make comprehensible the shoals and quicksands, the joys and misfortunes, and so give the rest of us power over them. Yes, but….

‘I desist for tonight. Clea took in the old man’s parrot; it was she who paid the expenses of his funeral. Her portrait of him still stands I believe upon a shelf in her now untenanted room. As for the parrot, it apparently still spoke in his voice and she said she was frequently startled by the things it came out with. Do you think one’s soul could enter the body of a green Amazon parrot to carry the memory of one forward a little way into Time? I would like to think so. But this is old history now.’

IX

Whenever Pombal was grievously disturbed about something (‘Mon Dieu! Today I am decomposed!’ he would say in his quaint English) he would take refuge in a magistral attack of gout in order to remind himself of his Norman ancestry. He kept an old-fashioned high-backed court chair, covered in red velveteen, for such occasions. He would sit with his wadded leg up on a footstool to read the Mercure and ponder on the possible reproof and transfer which might follow upon his latest gaffe whatever that might happen to be. His whole Chancery, he knew, was against him and considered his conduct (he drank too much and chased women) as prejudicial to the service. In fact, they were jealous because his means, which were not large enough to free him altogether from the burden of working for a living, permitted him nevertheless to live more or less en prince — if you could call the smoky little flat we shared princely.

As I climbed the stairs today I knew that he was in a decomposed state from the peevish tone in which he spoke. ‘It is not news’ he was repeating hysterically. ‘I forbid you to publish.’ One-eyed Hamid met me in the hall which smelt of frying, and waved a tender hand in the air. ‘The Miss has gone’ he whispered, indicating Melissa’s departure, ‘back six o’clock. Mr. Pombal very not good.’ He pronounced my friend’s name as if it contained no vowels: thus: Pmbl.

I found Keats was with him in the sitting-room, his large and perspiring frame stretched awkwardly across the sofa. He was grinning and his hat was on the back of his head. Pombal was perched in his gout-chair, looking mournful and peevish. I recognized the signs not only of a hangover but of yet another committed gaffe. What had Keats got hold of now? ‘Pombal’ I said, ‘what the devil has happened to your car?’ He groaned and clutched his dewlaps as if imploring me to leave the whole subject alone; obviously Keats had been teasing him about just that.

The little car in question, so dear to Pombal’s heart, now stood outside the front door, badly buckled and smashed. Keats gave a snuffle-gulp. ‘It was Sveva’ he explained, ‘and I’m not allowed to print it.’ Pombal moaned and rocked. ‘He won’t tell me the whole story.’

Pombal began to get really angry. ‘Will you please get out?’ he said, and Keats, always easily discountenanced before someone whose name appeared on the diplomatic list, rose and pocketed his notebook, wiping the smile off his face as he did so. ‘All right’ he said, punning feebly ‘Chacun a son gout, I suppose’ and clambered slowly down the stairs. I sat down opposite Pombal and waited for him to calm down.

‘Another gaffe, my dear boy’ he said at last; ‘the worst yet in the affaire Sveva. It was she … my poor car … you have seen it? Here, feel this bump on my neck. Eh? A bloody rock.’

I asked Hamid for some coffee while he recounted his latest mishap with the usual anguished gesticulations. He had been unwise ever to embark on this affair with the fiery Sveva, for now she loved him. ‘Love!’ Pombal groaned and twisted in his chair. ‘I am so weak about women’ he admitted, ‘and she was so easy. God, it was like having something put on one’s plate which one hadn’t ordered — or which someone else had and which had been sent to one’s table by mistake; she came into my life like a bifteck a point, like a stuffed eggplant…. What was I to do?

‘And then yesterday I thought: “Taking everything into account, her age, the state of her teeth, and so on, illness might very well intervene and cause me expense.” Besides, I don’t want a mistress in perpetuum mobile. So I decided to take her out to a quiet spot on the lake and say good-bye. She went mad. In a flash she was on the bank of the river where she found a huge pile of rocks. Before I knew what to say Piff Paff Pang Bong.’ His gestures were eloquent. ‘The air was full of rocks. Windscreen, headlights, everything … I was lying beside the clutch screaming. Feel this lump on my neck. She had gone mad. When all the glass was gone, she picked up a huge boulder and began to stove the car in screaming the word “Amour, Amour” to puctuate each bang like a maniac. I never want to hear the word again. Radiator gone, all the wings twisted. You have seen? You would never believe a girl could do such a thing. Then what? Then I’ll tell you what. She threw herself into the river. Figure to yourself my feelings. She can’t swim, nor can I. The scandal if she died! I threw myself in after her. We held each other and screamed like a pair of cats making love. The water I swallowed! Some policemen came and pulled us out. Long procesverbal, etc. I simply dare not ring the Chancery this morning. Life isn’t worth living.’

He was on the point of tears. ‘This is my third scandal this month’ he said. ‘And tomorrow is carnival. Do you know what? After long thought I have evolved an idea.’ He smiled a wintry smile. ‘I shall make sure about the carnival — even if I do drink too much and get in a scrape as I usually do. I shall go in an impenetrable disguise. Yes.’ He rinsed his fingers and repeated ‘An impenetrable disguise.’ Then he considered me for a moment as if to decide whether to trust me or not. His scrutiny seemed to satisfy him for he turned abruptly towards the cupboard and said: ‘If I show you, you’ll keep my secret, eh? We are friends after all. Fetch me the hat from the top shelf in there. You will get a laugh.’

Inside the cupboard I found an immense, old-fashioned picture-hat of the 1912 variety, trimmed with a bunch of faded osprey feathers and secured by a thick hatpin with a large blue stone head. ‘This?’ I said incredulously, and he chuckled complacently as he nodded. ‘Who will ever recognize me in this? Give it here….’

He looked so funny with it on that I was forced to sit down and laugh. He reminded me of Scobie in his own absurd Dolly Varden. Pombal looked … it is quite indescribable what this ridiculous creation did to his fat face. He began to laugh too as he said ‘Wonderful, no? My bloody colleagues will never know who the drunk woman was. And if the Consul General isn’t in domino I shall … make advances to him. I shall drive him out of his mind with passionate kisses. The swine!’ His face set in a grimace of hate looked even more ludicrous. As with Scobie, I was forced to plead: ‘Take it off, for God’s sake!’

He did so and sat grinning at me, consumed by the brilliance of his plan. At least, he thought, such indiscretions as he might commit would not be attributable to him. ‘I have a whole costume’ he added proudly. ‘So look out for me, will you? You are going, aren’t you? I hear that there are two full-scale balls going so we shall weave about from one to the other, eh? Good. I am a bit relieved, aren’t you?’

But it was this fatal hat of Pombal’s which led directly to Toto de Brunel’s mysterious death next evening at the Cervonis’ — the death which Justine believed her husband had reserved for her and which I… But I must follow the Interlinear back upon my tracks.

‘The question of the watch-key’ writes Balthazar ‘— the one you helped me hunt for among the crevices of the Grande Corniche on that winter day — turned out oddly. As you know, my time-piece stopped and I had to order another little gold ankh to be made for it. But in the interval the key was returned under strange circumstances. One day Justine came into the clinic and, kissing me warmly, produced it from her handbag. “Do you recognize this?” she asked me smiling, and then went on apologetically “I am so sorry for your concern, my dear Balthazar. It is the first time in my life that I have been forced to turn pickpocket. You see, there is a wall-safe in the house to which I was determined to gain access. At first glance the keys seemed similar and I wanted to see whether your watch-key fitted the lock. I had intended to return it next morning before you had time to worry, but I found that someone had removed it from my dressing-table. You won’t repeat this. I thought that perhaps Nessim himself had caught sight of it, and had suspected my motive, and had therefore confiscated it in order to try it in the lock of his