They Came to Baghdad

‘Come and have a drink with us, Miss Jones. Martini – sidecar? This is Mr Dakin. Miss Jones from England. Now then, my dear, what will you have?’

Victoria said she would have a sidecar ‘and some of those lovely nuts?’ she suggested hopefully, remembering that nuts were nutritious.

‘You like nuts. Jesus!’ He gave the order in rapid Arabic. Mr Dakin said in a sad voice that he would have a lemonade.

‘Ah,’ cried Marcus, ‘but that is ridiculous. Ah, here is Mrs Cardew Trench. You know Mr Dakin? What will you have?’

‘Gin and lime,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench, nodding to Dakin in an off-hand manner. ‘You look hot,’ she added to Victoria.

‘I’ve been walking round seeing the sights.’

When the drinks came, Victoria ate a large plateful of pistachio nuts and also some potato chips.

Presently, a short thick-set man came up the steps and the hospitable Marcus hailed him in his turn. He was introduced to Victoria as Captain Crosbie, and by the way his slightly protuberant eyes goggled at her, Victoria gathered that he was susceptible to feminine charm.

‘Just come out?’ he asked her.

‘Yesterday.’

‘Thought I hadn’t seen you around.’

‘She is very nice and beautiful, is she not?’ said Marcus joyfully. ‘Oh yes, it is very nice to have Miss Victoria. I will give a party for her – a very nice party.’

‘With baby chickens?’ said Victoria hopefully.

‘Yes, yes – and foie gras – Strasburg foie gras – and perhaps caviare – and then we have a dish with fish – very nice – a fish from the Tigris, but all with sauce and mushrooms. And then there is a turkey stuffed in the way we have it at my home – with rice and raisins and spice – and all cooked so! Oh it is very good – but you must eat very much of it – not just a tiny spoonful. Or if you like it better you shall have a steak – a really big steak and tender – I see to it. We will have a long dinner that goes on for hours. It will be very nice. I do not eat myself – I only drink.’

‘That will be lovely,’ said Victoria in a faint voice. The description of these viands made her feel quite giddy with hunger. She wondered if Marcus really meant to give this party and if so, how soon it could possibly happen.

‘Thought you’d gone to Basrah,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench to Crosbie.

‘Got back yesterday,’ said Crosbie.

He looked up at the balcony.

‘Who’s the bandit?’ he asked. ‘Feller in fancy dress in the big hat.’

‘That, my dear, is Sir Rupert Crofton Lee,’ said Marcus. ‘Mr Shrivenham brought him here from the Embassy last night. He is a very nice man, very distinguished traveller. He rides on camels over the Sahara, and climbs up mountains. It is very uncomfortable and dangerous, that kind of life. I should not like it myself.’

‘Oh he’s that chap, is he?’ said Crosbie. ‘I’ve read his book.’

‘I came over on the plane with him,’ said Victoria.

Both men, or so it seemed to her, looked at her with interest.

‘He’s frightfully stuck up and pleased with himself,’ said Victoria with disparagement.

‘Knew his aunt in Simla,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench. ‘The whole family is like that. Clever as they make them, but can’t help boasting of it.’

‘He’s been sitting out there doing nothing all the morning,’ said Victoria with slight disapproval.

‘It is his stomach,’ explained Marcus. ‘Today he cannot eat anything. It is sad.’

‘I can’t think,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench, ‘why you’re the size you are, Marcus, when you never eat anything.’

‘It is the drink,’ said Marcus. He sighed deeply. ‘I drink far too much. Tonight my sister and her husband come. I will drink and drink almost until morning.’ He sighed again, then uttered his usual sudden roar. ‘Jesus! Jesus! Bring the same again.’

‘Not for me,’ said Victoria hastily, and Mr Dakin refused also, finishing up his lemonade, and ambling gently away while Crosbie went up to his room.

Mrs Cardew Trench flicked Dakin’s glass with her fingernail. ‘Lemonade as usual?’ she said. ‘Bad sign, that.’

Victoria asked why it was a bad sign.

‘When a man only drinks when he’s alone.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Marcus. ‘That is so.’

‘Does he really drink, then?’ asked Victoria.

‘That’s why he’s never got on,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench. ‘Just manages to keep his job and that’s all.’

‘But he is a very nice man,’ said the charitable Marcus.

‘Pah,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench. ‘He’s a wet fish. Potters and dilly-dallies about – no stamina – no grip on life. Just one more Englishman who’s come out East and gone to seed.’

Thanking Marcus for the drink and again refusing a second, Victoria went up to her room, removed her shoes, and lay down on her bed to do some serious thinking. The three pounds odd to which her capital had dwindled was, she fancied, already due to Marcus for board and lodging. Owing to his generous disposition, and if she could sustain life mainly on alcoholic liquor assisted by nuts, olives and chip potatoes, she might solve the purely alimentary problem of the next few days. How long would it be before Marcus presented her with her bill, and how long would he allow it to run unpaid? She had no idea. He was not really, she thought, careless in business matters. She ought, of course, to find somewhere cheaper to live. But how would she find out where to go? She ought to find herself a job – quickly. But where did one apply for jobs? What kind of a job? Whom could she ask about looking for one? How terribly handicapping to one’s style it was to be dumped down practically penniless in a foreign city where one didn’t know the ropes. With just a little knowledge of the terrain, Victoria felt confident (as always) that she could hold her own. When would Edward get back from Basrah? Perhaps (horror) Edward would have forgotten all about her. Why on earth had she come rushing out to Baghdad in this asinine way? Who and what was Edward after all? Just another young man with an engaging grin and an attractive way of saying things. And what – what –what was his surname? If she knew that, she might wire him – no good, she didn’t even know where he was staying. She didn’t know anything – that was the trouble – that was what was cramping her style.

And there was no one to whom she could go for advice. Not Marcus who was kind but never listened. Not Mrs Cardew Trench (who had had suspicions from the first). Not Mrs Hamilton Clipp who had vanished to Kirkuk. Not Dr Rathbone.

She must get some money – or get a job –any job. Look after children, stick stamps on in an office, serve in a restaurant…Otherwise they would send her to a Consul and she would be repatriated to England and never see Edward again…

At this point, worn out with emotion, Victoria fell asleep.

II

She awoke some hours later and deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, went down to the restaurant and worked her way solidly through the entire menu – a generous one. When she had finished, she felt slightly like a boa constrictor, but definitely heartened.

‘It’s no good worrying any more,’ thought Victoria. ‘I’ll leave it all till tomorrow. Something may turn up, or I may think of something, or Edward may come back.’

Before going to bed she strolled out on to the terrace by the river. Since in the feelings of those living in Baghdad it was arctic winter nobody else was out there except one of the waiters, who was leaning over a railing staring down into the water, and he sprang away guiltily when Victoria appeared and hurried back into the hotel by the service door.