.

major.

      ‘Sarn’t major,’ says the sergeant.

      The knob rattles again.

      ‘Corporal Higgins, this door won’t open,’ says the sergeant.

      The knob rattles again. Robert wants to be sick again, and all the blood is running from his legs.

      ‘Jammed, sarn’t,’ says Corporal Higgins.

      ‘Jammed, sarn’t major,’ says the sergeant.

      ‘Jammed, saaaarrrrhh,’ says the sergeant major.

      ‘Jammed, sir,’ says the orderly officer.

      ‘Get the carpenter, sarn’t major,’ says the orderly officer.

      ‘Saaaaarrrrrhh. Get the carpenter, saaaarn’t,’ says the sergeant major.

      ‘Sarn’t major. Get the carpenter, Higgins,’ says the sergeant.

      ‘Sarn’t,’ says Higgins.

      He hears Higgins depart.

      The knob rattles again.

      ‘Funny thing, door jamming like that,’ says the C.O. He sniffs loudly. ‘No more poached eggs,’ he says.

      The party moves off. No-one has suspected that there might be someone in the lavatory, because no-one is allowed in the lavatory during the C.O.’s inspection.

      As soon as he dares, Robert hurries over to A Block ablutions, and is violently sick. But he doesn’t mind. It was worth it.

      May, 1956. The first really good time with Sonia. Early evening on a spring day. The sexuality in him all day, warmed by the spring sun. He walked slowly down from Cadman and Bentwhistle, making crablike progress down the hill towards the Caledonian Road. He felt romantic. The tenements in Laycock Street were liners trapped in concrete, the tired housewives leaning over the rail, hoping to see some foreign port beyond the lines of washing. He admired the Georgian and Victorian houses of Barnsbury. He walked past Belitha Villas and Thornhill Square, some streets going up in the world, others down, but all warmed equally by the sun. He went down Caledonian Road, up Copenhagen Street, through the jungle of railway bridges behind King’s Cross and St Pancras. In Euston Station he rang Sonia. He had never doubted that she’d be in. It was an evening when things must go right. He heard her deep French telephone and her nasal English voice. No, she wasn’t doing anything. Yes, she would like to see him.

      He walked on down the Euston Road and entered a public convenience. The attendant was cleaning it, at this hour on this lovely evening his world was a lavatory. Robert smiled at him as he peed, and hoped it helped. The man smiled back. Half the lavatory was roped off, and the wet floor that he had washed was protected by cardboard. As he went out Robert noticed the words ‘Sell your eggs in rotation’ on one of the pieces.

      ‘I will,’ he said cheerfully.

      The man smiled again.

      He was impatient now and caught the 27 bus. Sonia was wearing a simple summer dress. Her thin white arms were bare and the hair under her armpits was newly cut. He wondered how he could ever have thought she wasn’t attractive. She had bought a bottle of sherry, an extravagance on publisher’s pay, to drink to the summer. They drank to it.

      ‘Surprised?’ he said.

      ‘Perhaps I’m rather surprised every time I see you again.’

      So was he. But she was nice and peaceful to be with, and this time she was beautiful and it would be all right. They had only made love once and her ardency had taken him aback and afterwards he had wished that they hadn’t. It was messy and grotesque. He had left her at ten-twenty and drunk five whiskies rapidly in a pub round the corner. On the tube he had been rude to an Italian tourist, who had shrugged benevolently. He had picked up a milk bottle and lobbed it through the window of the Blessington Pet Shop. Fined £5. Luckily no mention of it in the papers. He had gone up to Doreen and Brenda’s. Michael had been there, and a boy friend of Brenda’s. They had all drunk cocoa, and he had been very rude to Michael.

      He sat on the floor and kissed her knees. There was a ladder in the right stocking. He put his little finger in and ran it along her flesh.

      ‘This is excellent sherry,’ he said.

      He could feel her gritting her teeth with desire. He unrolled the stockings and began to kiss her legs and feet. Her legs had blue veins in them but the skin was smooth. He said nothing. He could feel the tension even in her feet. On the sofa was an author’s manuscript. The window was open. She bent down and kissed the top of his head.

      He stood up and looked down at her in her chair. She also stood up. She was almost as tall as he was, and her slight smooth lips were wet.

      ‘I love you,’ he said.

      She shook her head ever so slightly. He kissed her for a long time, and then he undressed her and carried her into the tiny bedroom. When he touched her breasts she groaned as if the pleasure was too great. They made love quickly and violently, a rhythm that suited them both, and her groans were like the cries of a tortured woman. Afterwards he felt relaxed and happy and grateful. The sun fell slowly behind the curtains as they talked. She talked about her father. Her mother had died when she was two, and her father had married again, but the spark had gone out of him. He was a bank manager in Bristol. She loved him with the same compassionate love she seemed to feel for all the world.

      He asked her why she wasn’t married. She said she was much too particular, rather too cowardly, slightly too intense and not quite attractive enough. He demurred. She insisted. He changed the subject. They discussed places they would go to and things they would do – not that places and things meant much to her, except as experiences shared with loved ones.

      Again he entered her and this time it was slower and gentler and more deeply satisfying. And afterwards he felt sated but contented, and he knew that her desire remained and he would never be able to satisfy her.

      He was hungry. They dressed and had more sherry. She wore black trousers, and a check shirt. They ate the left-over bits of a chicken and there was a little cucumber and plenty of bread. After that there was red Cheshire and Edam and a pot of her excellent coffee. They played Scrabble and he kept making indecent words. It was his way of stimulating himself for what was to come.

      He needn’t have worried. His desire responded to hers and they made love again, and again it was good, but this time he felt too sleepy to say that he loved her. He just let his fingers touch her thighs as he slid into a deep and happy sleep, vaguely conscious that she was rubbing herself gently against his body and clenching her teeth in excitement.

      Then it was eight thirty-five and they were both going to be late for work. The sun was shining again, thrushes were singing, he shaved with Sonia’s razor, and she hardly spoke.

      ‘See you tonight,’ he said.

      June, 1960. His first trip abroad for Cadman and Bentwhistle to sell a new high speed drill to a French firm. The drill was supposedly capable of distinguishing between different kinds of rock and soil. The French firm was supposedly capable of building channel tunnels and major tunnels under the Alps. Robert was supposedly capable of winning the deal in the face of German and French opposition. It was an important transaction. Tadman-Evans wished him luck.

      ‘We’ve every confidence in you, Bellamy,’ he said.

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘It’s pity you’ve got to do such an important job on your first trip abroad, but there it is. There’s no-one else available,’ said Tadman-Evans.

      Tadman-Evans warned him that the French were all extremely clever, extremely cunning and extremely arrogant. Robert’s worry as the plane descended towards Orly wasn’t the French, but his French. It was the schoolboy stuff, and rusty at that. He’d meant to brush it up, but somehow he hadn’t got round to it.

      A car was waiting for him at the airport, and this drove him to the site of a great road building