Maybe I should have listened more closely.
I’m sure that I’d heard that story before, but I couldn’t place it. It banged around in my head all that shift without finding a home.
Saudi Arabia was on a self-imposed radio silence, or the lazy so-and-sos hadn’t bothered to get out of their tents that morning. All my radios gave me back was a reassuring hiss of static. I switched from aerial to aerial now and again, but was unable to tempt them – so I grabbed a couple of year-old Picturegoer magazines from a heap on a small table in the empty Allied suite. Brigitte Bardot was all at sea with Dirk Bogarde – when was he going to make a picture about what was going on in Cyprus? On the cover of the other one Jayne Mansfield was posing again: I knew she was a film star, but couldn’t for the life of me name a film she’d been in.
Just before the Spamwiches came round the telephone alongside my radios rang. It hadn’t done that before, so I probably looked stupidly at it for a few seconds before I lifted the receiver.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Bassett?’
‘Yes.’
‘Gate here, sir. You have a visitor.’
I wasn’t expecting one.
‘Who?’
‘A young lady in blue, sir. Very fetching.’
‘I’ll be right over.’
Wouldn’t you have done the same? It had been a pretty slow day so far.
Stephanie. Steve. As pretty as a Gainsborough. Royal blue summer dress which flared from the waist. No stockings. Flat sensible shoes. A small blue car which almost matched the dress was parked a few yards from the picket gate. The corporal talking to her moved away as I reached them. We spoke through the wire. I said, ‘Nice dress. Very nice, in fact. It looks expensive.’
She smiled and pouted at the same time.
‘Not very. It’s from Gor-Ray. I bought it in New Bond Street the last time I was over.’
‘I could pretend that I know what you’re talking about, but I won’t. All I can say is that it’s very nice.’
‘And that will do nicely. Will they let you out to play? I have a picnic for us in the car.’
‘No, I’m stuck here until Pat picks me up at four – one of the rules.’ I beckoned the guard over, and asked him, ‘Can my friend come in? She’s brought me a surprise lunch – it would be a pity to waste it.’
He looked doubtful, but made a friendly decision. His face cleared.
‘Civvies aren’t allowed in, sir, but just this once I’ll let you use the seat under that tree over there. By the MT workshop. I can see you from there, so if anyone asks I can say that she was never out of sight.’
The tree was a low twisted thing with a wonderful dark canopy of flat leaves which rustled against each other in the breeze. The seat beneath had been constructed around it: you sometimes see things like that in the gardens of stately homes, or parks, don’t you? We made our way to it after she had retrieved a picnic basket from the car, and had been let into the compound. I asked her about the car.
‘I knew a French colonel. He left it for me when he went home – something to remember him by. Why do these stupid men always want me to remember them?’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘Don’t be silly, Charlie. I’ll miss the car when I have to leave it behind. It’s famous.’
I squinted at it. It didn’t look famous to me – one of those little four-seat Renault 4 CV saloons, with the sloping back.
‘Famous for what?’
‘She was in the Le Mans sports car race in 1950, and finished twenty-fifth. I sometimes imagine my little car chasing all those big racing cars for twenty-four hours, until they all drop out one by one . . . and Antoinette is still going strong at the finish.’
‘Antoinette?’
‘She’s a small car with ideas above her station.’
She had been unpacking the lunch. That tasty Turkish flat bread, two cheeses – one of which was white and gluey – leaves which looked like lettuce, but weren’t. Two bananas and a couple of bottles of Keo. I wasn’t supposed to drink on duty either, but what the hell; it had been quiet. Steve read my mind as I hefted one of the bottles in one hand, and made a decision.
‘I’ve never had a girlfriend with a man’s name before.’
‘And I’ve never liked a proper Charlie as much as I like you. Why do you think I’m here?’ Then she added, ‘Call me Stephanie if you like – my family did.’
‘No. I like Steve. It will do for me.’
‘And I like Charlie. I could never call you Charles.’
Our sentences were merging into one another. I looked at her. She had a smear of soft cheese at the edge of her mouth. I made a mental mark; one of those events to remember. Memories which warm you when you are an old man. You see, I wanted the meal to go on for ever.
I didn’t know when I would see her again. I promised to make it as soon as I could, and that satisfied her. No protests; no upside-down smile. Unless you counted the one on my face as I fingered the wire on the picket gate as I watched her drive away. The blue of her car was picked up in the dust. I watched until it disappeared, and trudged back to the ops block suddenly browned off. De Whitt looked up from his desk.
‘Not a peep from your lot, Charlie, but the Orthodoxies found, and then lost, a Red sub in the Black Sea. Can you give them a hand to chase it?’
Better than doing nothing, I supposed. As I walked over to the army operators I messed the words around in my head, and wondered if there were
