We walked half a mile in silence. ‘How’s Miss Powell?’ I asked, ‘I don’t mind telling you, she’s a real problem to me. She’s got it into her head she wants to marry me.’ ‘Bad luck,’ I said. ‘The trouble with women is, they’re monogamous.’ ‘I know. It’s all very badly arranged.’ ‘What do you mean — my arrangements aren’t crystallized.’ ‘Never mind, you’ll feel different when you’re married to the daughter of the lord.’ ‘I’m not so sure. Women never understand. They tie a man down. They expect him to live the same life, day after day. Well. I was in the Commandos three years, and now I expect to call my life my own.’ ‘Cheer up. It looks as if there might very well be a war soon.’ ‘You can’t count on it,’ he said.
We were now in a hushed and darkened square, and outside a large house. The name on the doorbell we pushed was Colonel Bartowers. The door opened to show a martial old man, with protruding stomach, red face, and an aggressive blue stare.
‘We’re here on business. My name’s Ponsonby — Alfred Ponsonby.’ He thrust a card into the Colonel’s hand. The Colonel stood his ground, looking at him up and down, raising his white eyebrows in a terrifying way. ‘We understand you have premises to let.’
The Colonel fell back, astonished, and we were in the hall. The Colonel looked at me, and said blankly: ‘Well, come inside, now you’re here. How on earth — I haven’t even sent it to an agent — ’ He pulled himself together. ‘Well, I don’t know, these days you can’t even think of moving without getting in hordes of … however. I’m very glad. Come in.’
He showed us into a living-room. It was charming. This was the England I had read about in novels.
‘As a matter of interest,’ said the Colonel to me, ‘how did you hear about this flat?’
Mr Ponsonby strode forward and announced: ‘My cousin from Africa asked me to find her a flat.’ I tried to catch the Colonel’s eye, but Mr Ponsonby was in the way. ‘I’m in the business, as my card shows. There would be no fee to either lessor or lessee.’
‘A question of philanthropy,’ said the Colonel gravely; and Mr Ponsonby fell back, spelling out the word to himself. ‘Blood is blood,’ he offered at last.
‘Oh, quite,’ said Colonel Bartowers. He sighed and said: ‘Well, I suppose I might as well show you the flat, in case I decide to go abroad. You mentioned Africa?’ he said to me.
‘My cousin has just come,’ said Mr Ponsonby, trying to get between the Colonel and me, but he was brushed aside, and the Colonel took my arm.
‘I was myself in Southern Rhodesia for ten years. A little before your time. I expect, I left in 1905. Do you remember …’ And he began reciting names which are part of the history of the Empire. ‘This is the kitchen,’ he said, waving his hand at it, ft was equipped like an American kitchen. ‘All the things one needs in a kitchen. I believe. So my wife said. She ran off with someone else last year. No loss. Not really. But ! don’t use the kitchen. I eat out. Now, tell me, did you ever meet Jameson? I suppose not.’
In the bedroom he absently opened one cupboard after another, all filled with lush blankets and tinted linen of all kinds, shutting the doors before I could properly savour them. ‘All the usual things for bedrooms — hot bottles, electric bottles and so on. Never use the things myself. Now, tell me, did you ever go shooting down Gwelo way?’ He told a story of bow he had shot a lion in the chicken-run, in the good old days. ‘But perhaps things have changed,’ he remarked at last.
‘I think they have, rather.’
‘Yes, so I hear.’ He threw open another door. ‘The bathroom,’ he announced, before shutting it. I caught a glimpse of a very large room with a black and white tiled floor, and a pale pink bath. ‘A bit cramped,’ he said, ‘but in these days.’
‘Well, I think that’s all,’ he said at last. ‘Shall we have a drink on it?’ He produced a bottle of Armagnac; then he looked at Mr Ponsonby, for the first time in minutes, and frowned. ‘There’s a pub round the corner,’ he said putting back the bottle. In the pub he ordered two drinks for me and for him, added a third as a calculated afterthought, and turned his back on Mr Ponsonby, ‘Now,’ he said, his fat red face relaxing. ‘We can talk.’ For the space of several drinks I said yes and no; and in the intervals of his monologue, the Colonel ordered, with brusque dislike, another for Mr Ponsonby, who was reacting to this situation in a way which disconcerted me, I expected him to be angry; but his eyes were focused on some plan. He watched the Colonel’s face for some time while he pretended to be listening to his talk. Then he turned away and got into conversation with a man sitting next to him. I heard phrases like ‘a good investment’ and ‘thirty per cent’ spoken in a discreet, almost winning voice.
‘That Bulawayo campaign. The best days of my life. I remember lying on the kopje behind my house and taking pot-shots at the nigs as they came to the river for water. I was a damned good shot, though I say it myself. Of course, I still shoot a bit, grouse chiefly, but it’s not the same. It was a good life, say what you like.’ He shot a pugnacious blue glance at me and demanded: ‘From what I hear they’ll be taking pot-shots at us soon, getting their own back, hey? This idea seemed to cause him a detached and almost kindly amusement, for he guffawed and said: ‘I used to get good fun with those nigs. Damn good fellows some of them. Sportsmen. Good fighters. Ah, well.’ He sighed and put down his glass. ‘Two more of the same.’
‘Closing time, sir.’
‘Blast, This damned country. Can’t stand it. It’s a nation of old women these days. It’s the Labour Government. Petticoat government, that’s what I call it. That’s why I’m thinking of getting out again. To Kenya, I thought. I’ve got a cousin. I’d go back to Rhodesia, but my wife, blast her, is there with her new husband. Not big enough for both of us. The trouble is, though, once you’ve lived out of England, you can’t really settle in it. Too small. I expect you’ll find that, too. I remember I came back on leave after that Bulawayo campaign and asking myself. How the hell did I stick England all those years. I still ask myself.’
I heard Mr Ponsonby say: ‘A nice little sideline for a man with a few hundred to spare.’
The Colonel, peevishly fiddling with his empty glass, listened.
‘Needs doing up. But it’s in good repair. All it really needs is some paint and a bar.’
‘Your cousin …’
‘He’s not my cousin.’
‘Of course not. Ah, well, these people have their uses, I suppose! He appears to have irons in the fire.’
‘Dozens. He’s a man of enterprise.’
‘That’s what this country lacks, these days.’
‘He was in the Commandos, too.’
But the Colonel’s face expressed nothing but distaste. ‘Was he? I like clean fighting myself. Still, I suppose those fellows were necessary.’
‘My principal needs a quick decision,’ said Mr Ponsonby. ‘You can give me a ring in the morning.’ He got off his stool and turned to us, not immediately recognizing us, so great was his preoccupation. ‘Well,’ he asked. ‘Everything fixed?’ He spoke as if this little matter could only be kept in the forefront of his attention by the greatest concentration.
‘About the rent.’ I asked.
‘Well, my dear,’ said the Colonel. ‘I know one can get anything one asks these days, but I don’t like to take advantage. For you I’d make it ten guineas.’
‘You could easily get fifteen or twenty,’ I said.
‘Yes. I know. Those Yanks’d pay that. But I don’t like ’em.’
‘But I haven’t got the money to pay that, anyway.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t really want to let it. It’s an idea that came into my head last week. But I suppose I’ll have to end my days here. In the old country. The trouble is, it isn’t the old country any longer. I used to be proud to call myself English. I’m damned if I am these days.’
Mr Ponsonby was examining his watch.
‘This proposition you were discussing with that fellow,’ said the Colonel.
‘A night-club. Perhaps you might be interested?’
‘A night-club?’ said the Colonel, livening up. ‘Well, I might be interested to have some details.’
Mr Ponsonby had by now replaced me beside the Colonel. His manner with him was quite different than with me. He looked, perhaps, like a sergeant-major in mufti, rather bluff and responsible. ‘My principal,’ he said, ‘is very concerned about the hands it might get into. Needs decent people, you know.’
‘Ah,’ said the Colonel, a trifle suspiciously.
‘Shall I ring you in the morning, sir?’
‘Yes, you could do that.’
