The Dust That Falls from Dreams (33 page)

That night, having borrowed the AC Six, Daniel took Rosie on honeymoon to a hotel in Henley-on-Thames, and had to feed her himself. She declined champagne, and later on Daniel felt that he could not possibly expect anything of her in her injured condition. Moreover she had, perhaps wilfully, not taken account
of certain physiological inevitabilities when planning the date of the wedding. It was very difficult to change the clouts with her damaged hands, as it was to do anything for herself at all.

The couple lay face-to-face, kissing and talking, he in striped pyjamas and she in a copious nightdress. Her kisses were tentative and reluctant, and he construed this as modesty. After she fell asleep at last, he got up, went downstairs, lifted a sash, carefully made a note of which one it was, and went for a long nocturnal walk along the river. As dawn broke he sat on the stump of an oak, took out his cigarette case, removed a cigarette, tapped the end of it on the case, and lit it. He smoked and breathed in the chilly air all at once. In spite of everything, he was brimming with happiness and optimism. He had almost made up his mind to leave the RAF and get a job in civil aviation. Everyone said there were tremendous opportunities just round the corner. If that did not work out, he would go into motorcycles.

Daniel fell into a reverie about a house somewhere nice, such as here in Henley, and he envisaged himself playing cricket in the garden with his children, a pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth even though he did not smoke one, or going fishing on the Thames, when he had never been fishing in his life. In the driveway of the house, on the other side where you can’t see it, there would be a beautiful Hispano-Suiza, its engine ticking as it cooled down after a run to Oxford and back. In his mind’s eye Rosie was wearing a summer dress and a wide floppy hat. She was smiling at him and the children, and over her arm was a basket of flowers.

S
ophie lay flat on her back in bed, freshly washed and in a new nightdress with a decorative blue ribbon at the neck, waiting for her husband to come in from the bathroom. They had chosen a small hotel in Dover for the first night of their honeymoon and had come down by train, sending their luggage in advance. It was the kind of hotel where the plumbing groaned and rattled, and light draughts of fresh salty air seeped in through the ill-fitting window frames. They had dined on Dover sole, as seemed only appropriate, and had become very slightly tipsy on white wine that should have been a little bit more chilled, the kind of sour generic wine that the French used to palm off on the British, in the secure knowledge that the British didn’t know any better. Because Sophie and Captain Fairhead did not know any better, they had enjoyed it very much.

Captain Fairhead came in at last, and slipped under the sheets. He did not touch her, but turned on his side to face her. She rolled and faced him, so close that they could smell each other’s winey hot breath.

‘You face looks completely different from so close up,’ said Sophie.

‘From this close you’ve got four eyes,’ said Captain Fairhead. He planted a small kiss on her lips, and she put her arms around him.

‘Do you know what?’

‘No. What?’

‘Mama asked me if I knew what was going to happen tonight. I said, “We’re going to Dover.” And she said, “Don’t be obtuse, darling.” Then she said, “What will happen will be deeply unpleasant, humiliating and degrading, but you must do your duty, and in the end it is worth it for the children that result.” ’

‘What do you think we ought to do?’ asked Fairhead. ‘I confess,
I do feel quite apprehensive. I haven’t been so nervous in a long time. Like the feeling when you know there’s going to be a barrage.’

‘Didn’t you go to borledos in France?’

‘Borledos? What on earth do you mean?’

‘You know, places for jiggajig and hozirontal recreation?’

‘Hozirontal recreation? You mean bordellos?

‘Ah, that must be it.’

‘There was at least one for officers in Amiens,’ he said. ‘The queues at the licensed ones for other ranks were quite unbelievable.’

‘Didn’t you go and brandish your Bible at them?’

‘Certainly not. A military chaplain in time of war is solely concerned with consolation, encouragement and death. The men never took us very seriously in any case. They called us “sky pilots”. Even the airmen called us sky pilots. Anyway, I never was one for the “borledos”. You can call it fastidiousness, or moral principle, or lack of courage. I’m still not sure what it was, and now I’ll never know. I’m as pure as the driven snow, I’m afraid.’

‘I had some good advice,’ said Sophie. ‘I got it from someone who married last year.’

‘What was it?’

‘She said not to try and do it until you both feel comfortable, ’specially not on the first night. That’s what someone told her, and it worked out very well, she said.’

‘Really?’

‘She said just to stick to talking and kissing, and things like that.’

‘Are you ticklish?’ he asked.

‘Don’t tickle me, kiss me.’

‘Where?’

‘Here,’ she said, pointing to the tip of her nose. He kissed it. ‘Now here,’ she said, patting her right cheek, ‘and now here,’ patting the left. ‘Now it’s my turn to kiss you.’ She placed her mouth fully on his.

Quarter of an hour later, utterly enflamed, he said, ‘Do you really need that nightdress on?’

‘Do you really need those pyjamas?’

‘I’ll undress if you undress.’

‘You undress me, then I’ll undress you.’

He made her sit up, and pulled the nightdress over her head, exposing her small pointed breasts and flat belly. Her cheeks flushed, and she began to fumble with his buttons.

They lay wonderingly, their whole flesh in complete correspondence with another’s for the first time in their lives. The warmth, the smell, the textures, were strange, exciting and beautiful. He ran a finger softly down her spine, and she shivered.

Outside the gaslighter doused the street lamps. Their eyes glittered in the dark.

‘Shall we go to sleep now?’ he suggested mischievously. ‘We’ve got an early start if we want to get to Deauville.’

‘Oh drat,’ she said.

‘Thank God I’m alive,’ he said. ‘Thank God I made it through.’

‘Let’s not wait,’ she said.

In the morning, when they drew the curtains, a bright shaft of sunlight was thrown into the room, its colour pure and golden. Outside the sky was absolutely clear of cloud, and the whole town and the sea shimmered and wavered in a serene and perfect light. Sophie went to the window, naked as she was, and held out her arms so that the sunlight could bathe her body.

‘How beautiful you are,’ said Fairhead gratefully.

He went to the bathroom down the corridor, and when he returned quarter of an hour later, freshly shaven and smelling of cologne, he found Sophie in her nightdress and dressing gown, sitting by the window, apparently writing in the air with her forefinger. He stood behind her and saw that she was disturbing the tiny motes that sparkled in the bright shaft of sunlight.

‘Look at all the little shiny specks, swirling about,’ said Sophie. ‘Do you know what they are?’

‘Do you? What are they?’

‘They’re the dust that falls from dreams.’

‘The dust that falls from dreams,’ repeated Fairhead, his voice full of wonder. He was only just beginning the long journey towards the revelation that he had married a truly original and
remarkable woman, and felt again a pang of gratitude and incredulity.

‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘This is the dust from last night’s dreams. I’m writing our names. I’m writing with my finger in the dust that falls from dreams.’

17 February 1920

Mon frère,

I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to get back on the boat. It’s clear to me that I don’t belong in England or even in France any more. I belong in the Hindu Kush, in Waziristan, in wild tribal places where the logic is so simple it doesn’t amount to any kind of logic at all, where there’s no morality, reason or decency, and there’s only custom, honour and religion. You know what it’s like, you’ve served there yourself. Didn’t we have a wild and wonderful time? Now I don’t suppose you’ll ever set foot there again
.

I don’t honestly care very much about the Great Game. Of course, now that the Russians have gone Bolshevik, anything could happen. We’re in Afghanistan so the Russians can’t be, it’s as simple as that. It’s a game of dog in the bloody manger. That’s why we’re bogged down, dealing with people who aren’t like us and don’t want to be like us, and don’t know the difference between us and the Russians. We’re all just faranghi, and all they want is to settle back into their feuds and raids and poppy farming and stoning and tribal war. Killing and dying is all they live for, it seems to me, and we get in the way of their fun. But you know all this
.

Well, it is just a great game, isn’t it? I’m not going back because I care about it. There’s something wrong with me, and I’m out there to get away from myself and the people I love. I don’t fit in at home. I’m unsuited. What would I do in Blighty or
La Belle F
in peacetime? Square-bashing? I’m not bright enough to start a business, and it wouldn’t interest me. Can’t understand why Hamilton McCosh finds it so fascinating. What else is there? A bloody schoolmaster, teaching French and history, and footling about with the CCF on Wednesday afternoons? I’d be thrashing the boys out of sheer bloody frustration
.

No, brother, I’d rather die in Afghanistan for no good reason, and get
buried on a hillside where the dogs can dig me up and leave my bones to bleach in the sun for the ants to work on
.

I’ve often thought of writing my memoirs, but I lack the discipline. I have a great deal to pass on, a great many very wonderful stories about everything I’ve seen and done, but when I sit down with some foolscap and a fountain pen, all that happens is that I light a cigarette and go out for walk
.

As you’re my brother, I can tell you all the things you already know, and you won’t hold it against me. Not very stiff upper lip, I agree, but to hell with it. I’ve got that Latin part in me that sometimes wants to let go
.

I drink too much. Most of my brother officers do. We all do, don’t we? You told me about your heroic binges in the RFC. It must have been fun, and you must have drunk more in single evenings than I drink in a month, but the difference is, I need it and you don’t. One has to have a clear head to write memoirs. It’s no damned use being fuddled. You really ought to write yours one day. Everyone loves an air ace, and you’d be sure to make a few bob from it
.

I envy you heading off into marriage and a cleaner life. No more finding comrades mutilated beyond recognition by Pathans, with their balls cut off and their mouth pissed in by the women. God help the faranghi who falls into the hands of the women. I know you used to keep a revolver in the cockpit in case of fire. Out there I never shoot the last round in my revolver before reloading. I count to five
.

To think I’ve been out amongst those people for so long! But I do what soldiers do, I accept what can’t be helped. If I had my life again I’d probably do the same. I could have stayed in Blighty after the war. I had a good war, ended up in France just like you, got draped in medals, just like you, and now I’m a Commander of St Michael and St George, but I’m still going back to the North-West Frontier
.

A man needs to get away from himself sometimes
.

I want to speak to you frankly about Rosie, but it’s very difficult. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t blame you for loving and marrying her. I understand. I also know that she could not possibly have been happy with me, and I do believe most strongly that a man should not even consider marriage unless he can support a wife and children. Even so, one has dreams. It is very hard to endure the sight of them fluttering away like a flock of sparrows. It leaves a taste in the mouth like licking an old penny
.

I have been thinking lately about our father. It’s such a pity that he was killed when we were still so young. I don’t think I will ever get over it. I thought I had, but I hadn’t, as I realised when I stood outside the house in Court Road and remembered my childhood
.

He looked marvellously handsome in his uniform. I wish that
maman
had had a portrait made. He knew
The Hunting of the Snark
off by heart, and used to act it out for me. One doesn’t realise until rather too late how important one’s father is
.

I remember Rosie when she was a baby. Lovely blue eyes, very innocent, and then she grew up sincere and sober, like a little Presbyterian. You can fall in love with a little girl when you’re an adolescent you know. You just wait til she grows up a bit, and there you are, equal at last except that she adored the American boy. A very fine fellow, probably deserved her a lot more than I did. Much nearer her own age too. I didn’t begrudge him, but I couldn’t switch, if you know what I mean. I never really looked at anyone else. So I joined the Indian Army and got seconded to the Frontier Scouts. I went as far away as I could, and then you came out there too, which made everything so much more fun. And now you’re married to her after all, and I’m coming back out on my own
.

Well, it doesn’t do for Frontier Scouts to have wives, does it? Women drag you down if you’re the kind of man who wants to camp in the rocks and hunt antelope and hide in nullahs, and get into firefights with Johnny Mahsud. You can’t take women to the frontier, can you? Do you remember that woman who got carried off and went native and didn’t even want to be saved? A rum one, that. Then someone bought her for one rifle. That’s what a woman’s worth. But Rosie is worth a whole world,
mon frère
, so do take proper care of her
.

Did I tell you that last year we had a Pashtun recruit who got buggered by every man in his piquet? I told the Colonel that the boy was too damn pretty, and it started a whole six months of fights, and then a blood feud. Do you remember how we used to go out with binoculars, and there’d be Pashtuns buggering sheep and donkeys on every hillside? And the animals not giving a damn. I wanted to tell you about a song I heard called ‘The Wounded Heart’. Zakmi Dil. The song says: ‘There’s a boy across the river with a backside like a peach, but alas I cannot swim.’ I wonder what Rosie would think if she knew the world the way we know it. It seems to me that men have to keep the world secret from
women, just so that they can go on living in a state of innocence. Come to think of it, being at Westminster was pretty good training for being on the North-West Frontier, wasn’t it?

Do you remember poor old Captain Bowring, who got shot by a sentry at Sarwekai because his bare feet were pointed at Mecca? I don’t suppose you were there in 1904, though. No, you would have been fifteen, and still at Westminster. The mind gets hazy after Bombay Sapphires. I was just thinking that what happened to him pretty much encapsulates the whole madness of the region. There were tribesmen outside shooting at the tower where the sentry was holed up, and the only choice was to storm the tower or starve the bugger out
.

Everybody knew he had to be killed, but who was going to do it? Whoever did it would start a blood feud, and that might last for centuries. Anyway, it turned out that the man’s brother was there, and he agreed to do the execution, so he went to see his brother up in the tower, and the brother agreed to be shot fraternally. So he came up on the parapet and threw his rifle down, and he opened his arms wide, and he shouted ‘Allah o akbar’ because he knew he was sinless and had done the right thing, and then his brother shot him from down below. He stood still for a second and then whirled round and plunged down into the courtyard. That was the end of sepoy Kabul Khan. Another martyr for the Prophet. He was a Mahsud. Talk the hind legs off a donkey, those Mahsuds. Damned treacherous too. Can’t trust ’em an inch. Great fun to command, though. Splendid sense of humour. Nothing they like more than plaguing the political agent. Last year, one had the damned cheek to come and demand a campaign medal when he’d been on the other side, and wouldn’t give in until he’d got one, either
.

Forgive me if I’ve already told you about Bowring. I’ll give your love to the sandflies and mosquitoes, the malaria and dysentery and sandfly fever, the scorpions in my shoes and under the lid of the thunderbox
.

It was damn bad luck poor Rosie burning her hands like that, just before the wedding. I do hope she’s all right now
.

It’s a pity I never fell for Ottilie. She’s such a sweet girl and I’m very fond of her, but how could I marry her? I’d always be looking over her shoulder at her sister. Every time I saw Rosie I’d get the same lurch
.

I’d be a terrible husband. I shouldn’t inflict myself on anyone. Sorry about the stain on the right-hand side of the page. It’s Angostura bitters
.

I’m married to the army and the Afghan hills. I pray to God to let
me die there with a bullet through my heart, and I’ve told my brother officers I only want a cairn of stones
.

I’ve had too many gins to write any more now. I’m in Port Said, and it’s as near to Hell as any man gets on earth. I’m going to seal this up and go ashore and post it, before I think any better of it
.

I just wanted to tell you that if I die anywhere but in the Afghan hills, I’d like you to take my bones to Peshawar and bury them there
.

God knows when I’ll be back, mon frère. If only one of us can be entirely happy, I’m content it should be you. All my love to you and Rosie. I’ll write to
maman
when I’m sober
.

Archie, ever yours