‘Most people in England don’t know about it,’ he said carefully; ‘this country doesn’t mean much to them.’
‘But what about Rhodesia?’ she said. ‘It will be the same there, with all those Africans attacking women with knives and trying to take over the country. I heard that in Kenya the blacks used to cut open pregnant women and eat their babies.’
He gave a shudder: ‘No, Anne-Marie, those are atrocity stories, they are made up by one side against the other. Things like that may have happened occasionally, but they’re very isolated incidents.’
‘Isolated!’ she cried; ‘you should see what happens here. Almost every day. When they catch a French soldier or a European farmer in the Bled, they tie him down and cut off his manhood.’ She looked pointedly between his legs: ‘How would you like that to happen to you?’ But without waiting for him to answer, she sprang up and ran leaping into the waves. He followed her, feeling the hopeless gap of understanding between them as they swam past the barbed wire to join the others on the beach.
Lieutenant Morin’s transistor was twanging out canned jazz; it stopped for an official Government bulletin declaring the situation ‘normal’. There was no mention of the reservists going over to Guérin. ‘They are frightened to tell us about it,’ said Anne-Marie, ‘never believe anything the Government says, they tell only lies.’
Van Loon came prowling along the beach, his hair stiff with salt and his eyes scouring the sands for lone girls. He slumped down on the towel beside Neil. ‘Those bloody girls,’ he muttered, ‘all completely monopolized! You are lucky, old fellow. You have Anne-Marie. You take her back to the hotel — one bottle of wine and you are O.K.’
Neil lay in the sun and tried to drive out memories of Caroline on the beach at Ostia last summer: motoring back into Rome for a lazy dinner at Alfredo’s.
They dressed and went into the Casino. There was a dancefloor not much bigger than a card table, with a five-man band in sombreros playing a vigorous repertoire of Twist, Cha-Cha, Madison and Twist again. It was crowded and dark, even at five in the afternoon, and Neil and Anne-Marie danced for a long time. She moved beautifully. When the music stopped they stood with their fingers curled together, listening to the ivory ball clicking round the roulette wheel.
Later they went down and played: he cautiously, betting only on columns of dozens, and she with reckless panache, placing ten N.F. plaques on single numbers, quickly losing the equivalent of nearly twenty pounds. He had won about three. She came away in a black temper and he bought her a half-bottle of champagne on his winnings. Their table was empty, stacked with Coca-Cola bottles and piled ashtrays. Lieutenant Morin and Pip had gone back to the city in their Austin Healey; and Van Loon was at the bar drinking elaborate cocktails he could not afford.
‘We ought to go,’ said Neil, ‘in case something happens.’
She shook her head: ‘If something is going to happen, Monsieur Ingleby’ — she still called him Monsieur Ingleby — ‘we will know about it.’
‘Supposing the Army tries to break the barricades?’
‘We will know that too. Our intelligence service is very good. Nothing is going to happen today.’
They finished the champagne and wandered through to the terrace where they caught a glimpse of Van Loon bent over a glass full of fruit and green leaves. ‘He seems very sad, your Dutch friend,’ she said, as they walked out on to the cooling sands.
‘His girl left him back in Holland,’ said Neil, ‘he needs someone to console him.’
She smiled: ‘He should be able to find someone here. There are thousands of girls! We are a very warm-hearted people, Monsieur Ingleby — we don’t have hearts of stone like you Anglo-Saxons!’
She gave his arm a squeeze that might have been just in fun, but sent a quick needle of excitement up his spine.
‘Are you married?’ she said suddenly.
He turned and saw the sly whites of her eyes smiling at him. He shook his head.
‘You ought to get married,’ she said; ‘you are a nice man, I like you. Why haven’t you got married?’
He laughed without humour: ‘I haven’t found anybody.’
The sun was hanging low and the sea broke lazily along the sand. She stopped and took out a packet of cigarettes. She gave him one and bent forward till he caught the scent of her hair. There was no breeze. He struck the match and held it to her cigarette. He could hear the thump of music from the Casino: ‘Twist! Twist! Everybody’s doing the…’ The tip flared and went out. The cigarette flicked from her mouth and the box of matches was torn from his fingers. He stared at her and her face jerked out of his vision and was gone, reflected only in his memory. The music and the sea had stopped and the setting sun had turned black and the air was beaten with thundering waves of noise that pressed his head like an orange about to burst.
His mouth was full of sand. His back ached against the beach which was rocking under him, and all round him was a red darkness pierced by a wailing sound, rising and falling, growing louder, till he recognized the scream of an ambulance siren.
He crawled on to his knees and looked up at the Casino. There were dim figures jerking about in a fog of brown smoke. Anne-Marie had gone. He was alone on the beach. He began walking lamely up the coconut matting towards the splintered bamboo shoots
