He sat on his bed now in silence, sucking his pipe and listening to the chanting of the monks outside. A bell clanked dismally — a short cracked sound that made Neil shudder. It was growing cold in the cell and he wrapped the sackcloth round him, feeling the straw prick through his drill trousers.
‘This is a pretty poor place,’ said Van Loon, staring into the flame of the oil lamp. ‘These old monks here can’t have such good vineyards. Or maybe they drink all their wine. I wonder if we get any food tonight.’
‘Let’s have some ouzo,’ said Neil. ‘We might as well enjoy ourselves. It’s too dark to read.’
As Van Loon was taking the bottle from his rucksack, there was a slow tread along the gallery and the monk appeared with a tray laid with fish, olives, a jug of wine and two tumblers of arak. He put it on the floor and Van Loon offered him some ouzo. He grinned coyly, taking the bottle and swallowing at least an inch in one draught; then dribbled into his beard and chuckled, his one black eye shining fiercely. Van Loon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s a good old man, that!’ he said to Neil, when the monk had gone.
Neil was tasting the fish. It was so dry that it crumbled in his fingers like biscuit. ‘He might have brought us something better than this,’ he muttered.
Van Loon was trying the arak. ‘The trouble with you, old fellow,’ he said, with a sudden insight that rather jarred Neil, ‘you have too good a life. Look at that old man. He lives to be perhaps a hundred years old. He says his prayers, he eats this food, he drinks a bloody lot and he is happy!’ He took another gulp of arak and added, ‘This stuff he gives us is much stronger than my ouzo. After this, you eat anything!’
Neil picked up his glass, frowning, and sipped the transparent spirit. It burned his mouth raw, and his fingertips felt hot and dry. He bit into a lump of fish, chewed a couple of shrivelled olives, and lay back on the bed and thought of London, and of long-legged, small-breasted Miss Caroline Tucker: going to L.C.C. Russian classes and being whisked out of taxis through dim foyers to eat snails and listen to Hutch.
He finished the arak and Van Loon passed him the jug of wine. It was sweet and strong, washing out the salt taste of the fish, and together they drank in peace: Van Loon talking about how he would change his ways when he got back to Amsterdam — he would marry and buy a Vespa and drink only one beer in the evening before going back to his wife.
They finished the wine and returned to the ouzo. The Dutchman rambled on, and Neil lay in thought. Compared with Van Loon’s griefs, his own problems were somewhat academic. He worked for one of Britain’s most respected middlebrow Sunday newspapers. In twelve years spent in journalism, since graduating from Cambridge with a History First, he had established an enviable reputation. His political column each Sunday was well-informed and occasionally witty. He was a bachelor; made more than £3,000 a year, including television appearances; ran a Mini Cooper; lived in a spacious flat overlooking Battersea Park; and enjoyed the attentions and flattery of famous people: luncheon with Tory MP’s on the borders of Westminster, dinner parties with young Labour MP’s in the Boltons. He was a success. He had begun to drink too much, grow weary of his work, get up late in the morning and feel stale and morose.
His main affliction was a hopeless, lingering affair with a girl nearly ten years younger than himself. Caroline Tucker, pretty and penniless, was secretary to the editor of a fortnightly fashion magazine. He had met her at a cocktail party given by a junior Cabinet Minister, had invited her to dinner afterwards at Wheeler’s and taken her to bed the same night. She was gay and shallow and affectionate in spasms, and he loved her with a passion that was neither dignified nor enjoyable. They had nothing in common; she was grossly unfaithful to him but always came back, smiling and unashamed, curling up beside him with the curtains drawn against the park and a bottle of wine by the bed.
He had asked her to marry him many times, but she always laughed and said she didn’t want to marry anyone. He had taken her to Italy in the summer, motoring down the fast straight roads of France, and she had told him then that she loved him and that whatever happened between them she never wanted to lose him.
A few months later she had begun going out with a racing motorist called Tommy Drummond who drove Lotuses and was said to be on the way up. Neil had decided to withdraw nobly; he knew that she would come back to him eventually, as she always did. He had taken £250, packed a rucksack and left for Athos.
He was now feeling drunk enough not to care anymore. Van Loon rolled over and was asleep. Neil turned out the oil lamp, hunched himself under the sackcloth and thought of how, in a few weeks’ time, he would go back to London and take Caroline out to an expensive meal, fill her up with wine
