Collected Stories

The General’s Day

General Suffolk pulled on two grey knitted socks and stood upright. Humming a marching air, he walked to the bathroom, intent upon his morning shave. The grey socks were his only apparel and he noticed as he passed the mirror of his wardrobe the white spare body of an elderly man reflected without flattery. He voiced no comment nor did he ponder, even in passing, upon this pictured nakedness. He was used to the sight; and had, over the years, accepted the changes as they came. Still humming, he half filled the wash-basin with water. It felt keenly warm on his fingers, a circumstance he inwardly congratulated himself on.

With deft strokes the General cleared his face of lather and whisker, savouring the crisp rasp of razor upon flesh. He used a cut-throat article and when shorn to his satisfaction wiped it on a small absorbent pad, one of a series he had collected from the bedrooms of foreign hotels. He washed, dressed, set his moustache as he liked to sport it, and descended to his kitchen.

The General’s breakfast was simple: an egg poached lightly, two slices of toast and a pot of tea. It took him ten minutes to prepare and ten to consume. As he finished he heard the footsteps of the woman who daily came to work for him. They were slow, dragging footsteps implying the bulk they gracelessly shifted. The latch of the door rose and fell and Mrs Hinch, string bags and hairnet, cigarette cocked from the corner of her mouth, stood grinning before him. ‘Hullo,’ this woman said, adding as she often did, ‘my dear.’

‘Good morning, Mrs Hinch.’

Mrs Hinch stripped herself of bags, coat and cigarette with a single complicated gesture. She grinned again at the General, replaced her cigarette and set to clearing the table.

‘I shall walk to the village this morning,’ General Suffolk informed her. ‘It seems a pleasant morning to dawdle through. I shall take coffee at the brown café and try my luck at picking up some suitable matron.’

Mrs Hinch was accustomed to her employer’s turn of speech. She laughed shrilly at this sally, pleased that the man would be away for the morning. ‘Ah, General, you’ll be the death of us,’ she cried; and planned for his absence a number of trunk calls on his telephone, a leisurely bath and the imbibing of as much South African sherry as she considered discreet.

‘It is Saturday if I am not mistaken,’ the General went on. ‘A good morning for my plans. Is it not a fact that there are stout matrons in and out of the brown café by the score on a Saturday morning?’

‘Why, sure, General,’ said Mrs Hinch, anxious to place no barrier in his way. ‘Why, half the county goes to the brown café of a Saturday morning. You are certain to be successful this time.’

‘Cheering words, Mrs Hinch, cheering words. It is one thing to walk through the campion-clad lanes on a June morning, but quite another to do so with an objective one is sanguine of achieving.’

‘This is your day, General. I feel it in my bones. I said it to Hobson as I left. “This is a day for the General,” I said. “The General will do well today,” I said.’

‘And Hobson, Mrs Hinch? Hobson replied?’

Again Mrs Hinch, like a child’s toy designed for the purpose, shrilled her merriment.

‘General, General, Hobson’s my little bird.’

The General, rising from the table, frowned. ‘Do you imagine I am unaware of that? Since for six years you have daily informed me of the fact. And why, pray, since the bird is a parrot, should the powers of speech be beyond it? It is not so with other parrots.’

‘Hobson’s silent, General. You know Hobson’s silent.’

‘Due to your lethargy, Mrs Hinch. No bird of his nature need be silent: God does not intend it. He has taken some pains to equip the parrot with the instruments of speech. It is up to you to pursue the matter in a practical way by training the animal. A child, Mrs Hinch, does not remain ignorant of self-expression. Nor of the ability to feed and clean itself. The mother teaches, Mrs Hinch. It is part of nature. So with your parrot.’

Enthusiastic in her own defence, Mrs Hinch said: ‘I have brought up seven children. Four girls and three boys.’

‘Maybe. Maybe. I am in no position to question this. But indubitably with your parrot you are flying in the face of nature.’

‘Oh, General, never. Hobson’s silent and that’s that.’

The General regarded his adversary closely. ‘You miss my point,’ he said drily; and repeating the remark twice he left the room.

In his time General Suffolk had been a man of more than ordinary importance. As a leader and a strategist in two great wars he had risen rapidly to the heights implied by the title he bore. He had held in his hands the lives of many thousands of men; his decisions had more than once set the boundaries of nations. Steely intelligence and physical prowess had led him, in their different ways, to glories that few experience at Roeux; and at Monchy-le-Preux he had come close to death. Besides all that, there was about the General a quality that is rare in the ultimate leaders of his army: he was to the last a rake, and for this humanity a popular figure. He had cared for women, for money, for alcohol of every sort; but in the end he had found himself with none of these commodities. In his modest cottage he was an elderly man with a violent past; with neither wife nor riches nor cellar to help him on his way.

Mrs Hinch had said he would thrive today. That the day should be agreeable was all he asked. He did not seek merriness or reality or some moment of truth. He had lived for long enough to forgo excitement; he had had his share; he wished only that the day, and his life in it, should go the way he wished.

In the kitchen Mrs Hinch scoured the dishes briskly. She was not one to do things by halves; hot water and detergent in generous quantities was her way.

‘Careful with the cup handles,’ the General admonished her. ‘Adhesive for the repair of such a fracture has apparently not yet been perfected. And the cups themselves are valuable.’

‘Oh they’re flimsy, General. So flimsy you can’t watch them. Declare to God, I shall be glad to see the last of them!’

‘But not I, Mrs Hinch. I like those cups. Tea tastes better from fine china. I would take it kindly if you washed and dried with care.’

‘Hoity-toity, General! Your beauties are safe with me. I treat them as babies.’

‘Babies? Hardly a happy analogy, Mrs Hinch – since five of the set are lost for ever.’

‘Six,’ said Mrs Hinch, snapping beneath the water the handle from the cup. ‘You are better without the bother of them. I shall bring you a coronation mug.’

‘You fat old bitch,’ shouted the General. ‘Six makes the set. It was my last remaining link with the gracious life.’

Mrs Hinch, understanding and wishing to spite the General further, laughed. ‘Cheery-bye, General,’ she called as she heard him rattling among his walking sticks. He banged the front door and stepped out into the heat of the day. Mrs Hinch turned on the wireless.

‘I walked entranced,’ intoned the General, ‘through a land of morn. The sun in wondrous excess of light…’ He was seventy-eight: his memory faltered over the quotation. His stick, weapon of his irritation, thrashed through the campions, covering the road with broken blooms. Grasshoppers clicked; bees darted, paused, humming in flight, silent in labour. The road was brown with dust, dry and hot in the sunlight. It was a day, thought the General, to be successfully in love; and he mourned that the ecstasy of love on a hot summer’s day was so far behind him. Not that he had gone without it; which gave him his yardstick and saddened him the more.

Early in his retirement General Suffolk had tried his hand in many directions. He had been, to start with, the secretary of a golf club; though in a matter of months his temper relieved him of the task. He was given to disagreement and did not bandy words. He strode away from the golf club, red in the face, the air behind him stinging with insults. He lent his talents to the business world and to a military academy: both were dull and in both he failed. He bought his cottage, agreeing with himself that retirement was retirement and meant what it suggested. Only once since moving to the country had he involved himself with salaried work: as a tennis coach in a girls’ school. Despite his age he was active still on his legs and managed well enough. Too well, his grim and beady-eyed headmistress avowed, objecting to his method of instructing her virgins in the various stances by which they might achieve success with the serve. The General paused only to level at the headmistress a battery of expressions well known to him but new to her. He went on his way, his cheque in his wallet, his pockets bulging with small articles from her study. The girls he had taught pursued him, pressing upon him packets of cheap cigarettes, sweets and flowers.

The General walked on, his thoughts rambling. He thought of the past; of specific days, of moments of shame or pride in his life. The past was his hunting ground; from it came his pleasure and a good deal of everything else. Yet he was not proof against the moment he lived in. The present could snarl at him; could drown his memories so completely that when they surfaced again they were like the burnt tips of matches floating on a puddle, finished and done with. He walked through the summery day, puzzled that all this should be so.

The brown café, called ‘The Cuppa’, was, as General Suffolk and Mrs Hinch had anticipated, bustling with mid-morning traffic. Old men and their wives sat listening to the talk about them, exchanging by the way a hard comment on their fellows. Middle-aged women, outsize in linen dresses, were huddled three or four to a table, their great legs battling for room in inadequate space, their feet hot and unhappy in unwise shoes. Mothers passed unsuitable edibles towards the searching mouths of their young. Men with girls sipped at the pale creamy coffee, thinking only of the girls. Crumbs were everywhere; and the babel buzzed like a clockwork wind.

The General entered, surveyed the scene with distaste, and sat at a table already occupied by a youth engrossed in a weekly magazine. The youth, a fat bespotted lad, looked up and immediately grinned. General Suffolk replied in kind, stretching the flesh of his face to display his teeth in a smile designed to promote goodwill between them, for the pair were old friends.

‘Good morning, Basil. And how is youth and vigour today?’

‘Oh well, not so bad, General. My mum’s in the family way again.’

‘A cause for joy,’ murmured General Suffolk, ordering coffee with Devonshire cream and the fruit pie he favoured. ‘Your mother is a great one for babies, is she not?’

‘My dad says the same. He don’t understand it neither. Worried, is Dad. Anyone can see that.’

‘I see.’

‘Well, it is a bit fishy, General. Dad’s not the man to be careless. It’s just about as fishy as hell.’

‘Basil, your mother needs all the support she can get at a time like this. Talk about fishiness is scarcely going to help her in her ordeal.’

‘Mum’s had five. Drops ’em like hot bricks so she says. Thing is, if this one’s fishy what about the others?’

The General placed a portion of pie in his mouth. Crumbs of pastry and other matter lingered on his moustache. ‘You are thinking of yourself, Basil.’

‘Wouldn’t you? I mean to say.’

‘I would attach no importance to such a doubt, I do assure you. Basil, what do you say we spend this afternoon at some local fête? It is just an afternoon for a fête. I will stand you lunch.’

The plumpness of Basil’s face sharpened into suspicion. He moved his large hams uneasily on his chair and avoided his companion’s gaze. ‘It’s Mum really, General. I’ve got to tend her a bit, like you say it’s a hard time for her. And with Dad so snappish and the kids all over the place I don’t think she’d take it kindly if I was to go going off to fêtes and that. Not at a time like this like.’

‘Ah, filial duty. I trust your mother appreciates your sacrifices.’

But Basil, not anxious to prolong the conversation in this direction, was on his feet, his right hand hovering for the General’s grasp. And then, the handshake completed, he moved himself clumsily between the tables and passed through the open doorway.

General Suffolk stirred sugar into his coffee and looked about him. A lanky schoolmistress from the school he had taught tennis at sat alone at a corner table. She was a woman of forty or so, the General imagined; and he recalled having seen her by chance once, through an open window, in her underclothes. Since then he had often considered her in terms of sex, though now, when he might have explored the possibility, he found himself unable to remember her name. He watched her, trying to catch her glance, but either she did not recognize him or did not wish to associate with so reprobate a character. He dismissed her mentally and surveyed the room again. There was no one with whom he could fall into casual conversation, except perhaps a certain Mrs Consitine, known in her youth as Jumbo Consitine because of her size, and whose freakish appearance repelled him always to the point of physical sickness. He dodged the lady’s predatory stare and left the café.

It was a quarter to twelve. If the General walked through the village he would be just in time for a morning drink with Frobisher. Frobisher always drank – sometimes considerably – before lunch. On a day like this a drink was emphatically in order.

Mrs Hinch, the General reflected, would be settling down to his South African sherry about now. ‘You thieving old bitch,’ he said aloud. ‘Fifty years in Their Majesties’ service and I end up with Mrs bloody Hinch.’ A man carrying a coil of garden hose tripped and fell across his path. This man, a weekend visitor to the district, known to the General by sight and disliked by him, uttered as he dropped to the ground a series of expletives of a blasphemous and violent nature. The General, since the man’s weight lay on his shoes, stooped to assist him. ‘Oh, buzz off,’ ordered the man, his face close to the General’s. So the General left him, conscious not so much of his dismissal as of the form of words it had taken. The sun warmed his forehead and drops of sweat glistened on his nose and chin.

The Frobishers’ house was small and vaguely Georgian. From the outside it had the feeling of a town house placed by some error in the country. There were pillars on either side of the front door, which was itself dressed in a grey and white canvas cover as a protection against the sun. Door and cover swung inwards and Mrs Frobisher, squat and old, spoke from the hall.

‘It’s General Suffolk,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said the General. ‘That old soldier.’

‘You’ve come to see Frob. Come in a minute and I’ll fetch him. What a lovely day.’

The General stepped into the hall. It was cool and smelt rather pleasantly of floor polish. Daggers, swords, Eastern rugs, knick-knacks and novelties hung in profusion everywhere. ‘Frob! Frob!’ Mrs Frobisher called, climbing the stairs. There had been a day, a terrible sultry day in India all of fifty years ago, when the General – though then not yet a general – had fought a duel with a certain Major Service. They had walked together quietly to a selected spot, their seconds, carrying a pair of kukris, trailing behind them. It had been a quarrel that involved, surprisingly, neither man’s honour. In retrospect General Suffolk could scarcely remember the cause: some insult directed against some woman, though by whom and in what manner escaped him. He had struck Major Service on the left forearm, drawing a considerable quantity of blood, and the duel was reckoned complete. An excuse was made for the wound sustained by the Major and the affair was successfully hushed up. It was the nearest that General Suffolk had ever come to being court-martialled. He was put in mind of the occasion by the presence of a kukri on the Frobishers’ wall. A nasty weapon, he reflected, and considered it odd that he should once have wielded one so casually. After all, Major Service might easily have lost his arm or, come to that, his life.

‘Frob! Frob! Where are you?’ cried Mrs Frobisher. ‘General Suffolk’s here to see you.’

‘Suffolk?’ Frobisher’s voice called from another direction. ‘Oh my dear, can’t you tell him I’m out?’

The General, hearing the words, left the house.

In the saloon bar of the public house General Suffolk asked the barman about the local fêtes.

‘Don’t think so, sir. Not today. Not that I’ve heard of.’

‘There’s a fête at Marmount,’ a man at the bar said. ‘Conservative fête, same Saturday every year.’

‘Ah certainly,’ said the barman, ‘but Marmount’s fifteen miles away. General Suffolk means a local fête. The General doesn’t have a car.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said the man. ‘Marmount’s not an easy spot to reach. Even if you did have a car, sir.’

‘I will have a sandwich, Jock,’ said General Suffolk. ‘Chop me a cheese sandwich like a good man.’ He was beginning to feel low; the day was not good; the day was getting out of control. Fear filled his mind and the tepid beer was no comfort. He began to pray inwardly, but he had little faith now in this communication. ‘Never mind,’ he said aloud. ‘It is just that it seems like a day for a fête. I won a half guinea at a summer fête last year. One never knows one’s luck.’ He caught sight of a card advertising the weekly films at the cinema of the nearby town.

‘Have you seen The Guns of Navarone?’ he questioned the barman.

‘I have, sir, and very good it is.’

The General nodded. ‘A powerful epic by the sound of it.’

‘That’s the word, General. As the saying goes, it had me riveted.’

‘Well, hurry the sandwiches then. I can catch the one-ten bus and achieve the first performance.’

‘Funny thing, sir,’ said the barman. ‘I can never take the cinema of an afternoon. Not that it isn’t a time that suits me, the hours being what they are. No, I go generally on my night off. Can’t seem to settle down in the afternoon or something. Specially in the good weather. To me, sir, it seems unnatural.’

‘That is an interesting point of view, Jock. It is indeed. And may well be shared by many – for I have noticed that the cinemas are often almost empty in the afternoon.’

‘I like to be outside on a good afternoon. Taking a stroll by a trout stream or in a copse.’

‘A change is as good as a cure, or whatever the adage is. After all, you are inside a good deal in your work. To be alone must be quite delightful after the idle chatter you have to endure.’

‘If you don’t mind my saying it, General, I don’t know how you do it. It would kill me to sit at the pictures on an afternoon like this. I would feel – as it were, sir – guilty.’

‘Guilty, Jock?’

‘Looking the Great Gift Horse in the mouth, sir.’

‘The –? Are you referring to the Deity, Jock?’

‘Surely, sir. I would feel it like an unclean action.’

‘Maybe, Jock. Though I doubt that God would care to hear you describe Him as a horse.’

‘Oh but, General –’

‘You mean no disrespect. It is taken as read, Jock. But you cannot be too careful.’

‘Guilt is my problem, sir.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. Guilt can often be quite a burden.’

‘I am never free of it, sir. If it’s not one thing it’s another.’

‘I know too well, Jock.’

‘It was not presumptuous of me to mention that thing about the cinema? I was casting no stone at you, sir.’

‘Quite, quite. It may even be that I would prefer to attend an evening house. But beggars, you know, cannot be choosers.’

‘I would not like to offend you, General.’

‘Good boy, Jock. In any case I am not offended. I enjoy a chat.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Not at all. But now I must be on my way. Consider your problem closely: you may discover some simple solution. There are uncharted regions in the human mind.’

‘Sir?’

‘You are a good fellow, Jock. We old soldiers must stick together.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Jock, taking the remark as a joke, since he was in the first place a young man still, and had never been in the army.

‘Well, cheerio then.’

‘Cheerio, sir.’

How extraordinary, thought the General, that the man should feel like that: guilty about daytime cinema attendance. As Mrs Hinch would have it, it takes all sorts.

The thought of Mrs Hinch depressed the General further and drove him straight to a telephone booth. He often telephoned his cottage at this time of day as a check on her time-keeping. She was due to remain at work for a further hour, but generally the telephone rang unanswered. Today he got the engaged signal. As he boarded his bus, he wondered how much it was costing him.

Taurus. 21 April to 20 May. Financial affairs straighten themselves out. Do not make decisions this afternoon: your judgement is not at its best.

The General peeped around the edge of the newspaper at the woman who shared his table. She was a thin, middle-aged person with a face like a faded photograph. Her hair was inadequately dyed a shade of brown, her face touched briefly with lipstick and powder. She wore a cream-coloured blouse and a small string of green beads which the General assumed, correctly, to be jade. Her skirt, which the General could not see, was of fine tweed.

‘How thoughtless of me,’ said the General. ‘I have picked up your paper. It was on the chair and I did it quite automatically. I am so sorry.’

He knew the newspaper was not hers. No one places a newspaper on the other chair at a café table when the other chair is so well out of reach. Unless, that is, one wishes to reserve the place, which the lady, since she made no protest at his occupying it, was clearly not interested in doing. He made the pretence of offering the paper across the tea-table, leaning forward and sideways to catch a glimpse of her legs.

‘Oh but,’ said the lady, ‘it is not my newspaper at all.’

Beautiful legs. Really beautiful legs. Shimmering in silk or nylon, with fine firm knees and intoxicating calves.

‘Are you sure? In that case it must have been left by the last people, I was reading the stars. I am to have an indecisive afternoon.’ She belongs to the upper classes, General Suffolk said to himself; the upper classes are still well-bred in the leg.

The lady tinkled with laughter. I am away, the General thought. ‘When is your birthday?’ he asked daringly. ‘And I will tell you what to expect for the rest of today.’

‘Oh, I’m Libra, I think.’

‘It is a good moment for fresh associations,’ lied the General, pretending to read from the paper. ‘A new regime is on its way.’

‘You can’t believe a thing they say.’

‘Fighting words,’ said the General, and they laughed and changed the subject of conversation.

In the interval at the cinema, when the lights had gone up and the girls with ice-cream began their sales stroll, the General had seen, two or three rows from the screen, the fat unhealthy figure of his friend Basil. The youth was accompanied by a girl, and it distressed General Suffolk that Basil should have made so feeble an excuse when earlier he had proposed an excursion to a fête. The explanation that Basil wished to indulge in carnal pleasures in the gloom of a picture house would naturally have touched the General’s sympathy. Basil was an untrustworthy lad. It was odd, the General reflected, that some people are like that: so addicted to the lie that to avoid one, when the truth is in order, seems almost a sin.

‘General Suffolk,’ explained the General. ‘Retired, of course.’

‘We live in Bradoak,’ said the lady. ‘My name actually is Mrs Hope-Kingley.’

‘Retired?’

‘Ha, ha. Though in a way it’s true. My husband is not alive now.’

‘Ah,’ said the General, delighted. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I am quite over it, thank you. It is all of fifteen years since last I saw him. We had been divorced some time before his death.’

‘Divorce and death, divorce and death. You hear it all the time. May I be personal now and say I am surprised you did not remarry?’

‘Oh, General Suffolk, Mr Right never came along!’

‘Attention! Les étoiles!’

‘Ha, ha.’ And to her own surprise, Mrs Hope-Kingley proceeded to reveal to this elderly stranger the story of her marriage.

As he listened, General Suffolk considered how best to play his cards. It was a situation he had found himself in many times before, but as always the game must vary in detail. He felt mentally a little tired as he thought about it; and the fear that, in this, as in almost everything else, age had taken too great a toll struck at him with familiar ruthlessness. In his thirties he had played superbly, as good at love as he was at tennis. Now arrogant, now innocent, he had swooped and struck, captured and killed; and smiled over many a breakfast at the beauty that had been his prize.

They finished their tea. ‘I am slipping along to the County for a drink,’ said the General. ‘Do join me for a quick one.’

‘How kind of you. I must not delay though. My sister will expect me.’ And they climbed into Mrs Hope-Kingley’s small car and drove to the hotel. Over their gins the General spoke of his early days in the army and touched upon his present life, naming Mrs Hinch.

‘What a frightful woman! You must sack her.’

‘But who would do for me? I need my bed made and the place kept clean. Women are not easy to find in the country.’

‘I know a Mrs Gall who lives in your district. She has the reputation of being particularly reliable. My friends the Boddingtons use her.’

‘Well, that is certainly a thought. D’you know, I had become quite reconciled to Hinch. I never thought to change her really. What a breath of life you are!’

After three double gins Mrs Hope-Kingley was slightly drunk. Her face flushed with pleasure. Compliments do not come your way too often these days, thought the General; and he ambled off to the bar to clinch the matter with a further drink. How absurd to be upset by the passing details of the day! What did it all matter, now that he had found this promising lady? The day and its people, so directed against him, were balanced surely by this meeting? With her there was strength; from her side he might look out on the world with power and with confidence. In a panic of enthusiasm he almost suggested marriage. His hands were shaking and he felt again a surge of the old arrogance. There is life in the old dog yet, he thought. Handing her her drink, he smiled and winked.

‘After this I must go,’ the lady said.

‘Come, come, the night is younger than we are. It is not every day I can pick up a bundle of charms in a teashop.’

‘Ha, ha, ha.’ Mrs Hope-Kingley purred, thinking that for once her sister would simply have to wait, and wondering if she should dare to tell her that she had been drinking with an elderly soldier.

They were sitting at a small table in a corner. Now and again, it could have been an accident, the General’s knee touched hers. He watched the level of gin lower in her glass. ‘You are a pretty lady,’ murmured the General, and beneath the table his hand stroked her stockinged knee and ventured a little beyond it.

‘My God!’ said Mrs Hope-Kingley, her face like a beetroot. The General lowered his head. He heard her snatch her handbag from the seat beside him. When he looked up she was gone.

*

‘When were you born?’ General Suffolk asked the man in the bus.

The man seemed startled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘nineteen-oh-three actually.’

‘No, no, no. What month? When does your birthday fall?’

‘Well, October the 21st actually.’

‘Libra by a day,’ the General informed him, consulting his newspaper as he spoke. ‘For tomorrow, there are to be perfect conditions for enjoying yourself; though it may be a little expensive. Don’t gamble.’

‘I see,’ said the man, glancing in embarrassment through the window.

‘Patrelli is usually reliable.’

The man nodded, thinking: The old fellow is drunk. He was right: the General was drunk.

‘I do not read the stars every day,’ General Suffolk explained. ‘It is only when I happen upon an evening paper. I must say I find Patrelli the finest augur of the lot. Do you not agree?’

The man made an effort to smile, muttering something incomprehensible.

‘What’s that, what’s that? I cannot hear you.’

‘I don’t know at all. I don’t know about such matters.’

‘You are not interested in the stars?’

The man shook his head.

‘In that case, I have been boring you.’

‘No, no –’

‘If you were not interested in my conversation you should have said so. It is quite simple to say it. I cannot understand you.’

‘I’m sorry –’

‘I do not like to offend people. I do not like to be a nuisance. You should have stopped me, sir.’

The man made a gesture vague in its meaning.

‘You have taken advantage of an old warrior.’

‘I cannot see –’

‘You should have halted me. It costs nothing to speak.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Think nothing of it. Think nothing of it at all. Here is my village. If you are dismounting, would you care to join me in a drink?’

‘Thank you, no. I am –’

‘I swear not to speak of the stars.’

‘I go on a bit. This is not my stop.’

The General shook his head, as though doubting this statement. The bus stopped and, aided by the conductor, he left it.

‘Did you see The Guns, General?’ Jock shouted across the bar.

Not hearing, but understanding that the barman was addressing him, General Suffolk waved breezily. ‘A large whisky, Jock. And a drop of beer for yourself.’

‘Did you see The Guns then?’

‘The guns?’

‘The pictures, General. The Guns of Navarone.’

‘That is very kind of you, Jock. But we must make it some other time. I saw that very film this afternoon.’

‘General, did you like it?’

‘Certainly, Jock. Certainly I liked it. It was very well done. I thought it was done very well indeed.’

‘Two gins and split a bottle of tonic,’ a man called out.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the General, ‘I think I am in your way.’

‘Two gins and a split tonic,’ repeated Jock.

‘And something for our friend,’ the man added, indicating the General.

‘That is kind of you. Everyone is kind tonight. Jock here has just invited me to accompany him to the pictures. Unfortunately I have seen the film. But there will be other occasions. We shall go together again. May I ask you when you were born, the month I mean?’

The man, whose attention was taken up with the purchasing and transportation of his drinks, said: ‘Some time in May, I think.’

‘But exactly? When is your birthday, for instance?’ But the man had returned to a small table against the wall, where a girl and several packets of unopened crisps awaited him.

‘Jock, do you follow the stars?’

‘D’you mean telescopes and that?’

‘No, no, my boy.’ The General swayed, catching at the bar to balance himself. He had had very little to eat all day: the old, he maintained, did not need it. ‘No, no, I mean the augurs. Capricorn, Scorpio, Gemini, you know what I mean.’

‘Lord Luck in the Daily Express?’

‘That’s it. That’s the kind of thing. D’you take an interest at all?’

‘Well, General, now, I don’t.’

‘When’s your birthday, Jock?’

‘August the 15th.’

‘A Leo, by Harry! It is quite something to be a Leo, Jock. I would never have guessed it.’

Jock laughed loudly. ‘After all, General, it is not my doing.’

‘Fill up our glasses. Let me see what tomorrow holds for you.’ But examining the paper, he found it difficult to focus. ‘Here Jock, read it yourself.’

And Jock read aloud:

‘You will gain a lot by mingling with friends old and new. Late evening particularly favours entry into new social circles.’

‘Hark at that then! Remember the words, my friend. Patrelli is rarely wrong. The best augur of the bunch.’ The General had become dishevelled. His face was flushed and his eyelids drooped intermittently and uncontrollably. He fidgeted with his clothes, as though nervous about the positioning of his hands. ‘A final whisky, Jock boy; and a half bottle to carry home.’

On the road from the village to his cottage the General felt very drunk indeed. He lurched from one grass verge to the other, grasping his half bottle of whisky and singing gently under his breath. He knocked on the Frobishers’ door with his stick, and scarcely waiting for a reply knocked loudly again.

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Frobisher demanded, ‘what’s the matter with you?’

‘A little drink,’ explained General Suffolk. ‘You and me and Mrs Frob, a little drink together. I have brought some with me. In case you had run out.’

Frobisher glared at him. ‘You’re drunk, Suffolk. You’re bloody well drunk.’

General Suffolk loosed a peal of laughter. ‘Ha, ha, the old man’s drunk. Let me in, Frob, and so shall you be.’

Frobisher attempted to close the door, but the General inserted his stick.

He laughed again, and then was silent. When he spoke his voice was pleading.

‘One drink, Frob. Just one for you and me. Frob, when were you born?’

Frobisher began to snort with anger: he was a short-tempered man, he saw no reason to humour this unwelcome guest. He kicked sharply at the General’s stick, then opening the door widely he shouted into his face: ‘Get the hell off my premises, you bloody old fool! Go on, Suffolk, hop it!’

The General did not appear to understand. He smiled at Frobisher. ‘Tell me the month of your birth and I shall tell you in return what the morrow holds –’

‘God damn it, Suffolk –’

‘One little drink, and we’ll consult the stars together. They may well be of interest to Mrs –’

‘Get off my premises, you fool! You’ve damaged my door with your damned stick. You’ll pay for that, Suffolk. You’ll hear from my solicitors. I promise you, if you don’t go immediately I won’t hesitate to call for the police.’

‘One drink, Frob. Look, I’m a little lonely –’

Frobisher banged the door. ‘Frob, Frob,’ General Suffolk called, striking the door with his stick. ‘A nightcap, my old friend. Don’t refuse a drink now.’ But the door remained closed against him. He spoke for a while to himself, then made his way unsteadily homewards.

‘General Suffolk, are you ill?’

The General narrowed his eyes, focusing on the couple who stood before him; he did not recognize them; he was aware of feeling guilty because of it.

‘We are returning home from a game of cards,’ the woman of the two told him. ‘It is a balmy evening for a stroll.’

The General tried to smile. Since leaving the Frobishers’ house he had drunk most of the whisky. The people danced a bit before him, like outsize puppets. They moved up and down, and from side to side. They walked rapidly, silently, backwards. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed the General. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Are you ill? You don’t seem yourself.’

The General smiled at some little joke. ‘I have not been myself for many years. Today is just another day.’

The people were moving away. He could hear them murmuring to each other.

‘You have not asked me about the stars,’ he shouted after them. ‘I could tell you if you asked.’ But they were already gone, and uncorking the bottle he drained the remains and threw it into a ditch.

As he passed Mrs Hinch’s cottage he decided to call on her. He had it on his mind to play some joke on the woman, to say that she need not again attend to his household needs. He banged powerfully on the door and in a moment Mrs Hinch’s head, rich in curling pins, appeared at a window to his right.

‘Why, General dear,’ said Mrs Hinch, recognizing immediately his condition. ‘You’ve been on the razzle.’

‘Mrs Hinch, when is your birthday?’

‘Why, my dear? Have you a present for little Hinchie?’

‘Give me the information and I will let you know what tomorrow brings.’

‘May the 3rd. I was born at two o’clock in the morning.’

But in his walk he had somewhere mislaid the newspaper and could tell her nothing. He gripped the doorstep and seemed about to fall.

‘Steady now,’ said Mrs Hinch. ‘I’ll dress myself and help you home.’ The head was withdrawn and the General waited for the company of his unreliable servant.

She, in the room, slipped out of her nightdress and buttoned about her her everyday clothes. This would last her for months. ‘Ho ho, my dear,’ she would say, ‘remember that night? Worse for wear you were. Whatever would you have done without your little Hinchie?’ Chortling and crowing, she hitched up her skirts and paraded forth to meet him.

‘Oh General, you’re naughty! You shouldn’t be allowed out.’

The General laughed. Clumsily he slapped her broad buttocks. She screamed shrilly, enjoying again the position she now held over him. ‘Dirty old General! Hinchie won’t carry her beauty home unless he’s a good boy tonight.’ She laughed her cackling laugh and the General joined in it. He dawdled a bit, and losing her patience Mrs Hinch pushed him roughly in front of her. He fell, and in picking him up she came upon his wallet and skilfully extracted two pounds ten. ‘General would fancy his Hinchie tonight,’ she said, shrieking merrily at the thought. But the General was silent now, seeming almost asleep as he walked. His face was gaunt and thin, with little patches of red. ‘I could live for twenty years,’ he whispered. ‘My God Almighty, I could live for twenty years.’ Tears spread on his cheeks. ‘Lor’ love a duck!’ cried Mrs Hinch; and leaning on the arm of this stout woman the hero of Roeux and Monchy-le-Preux stumbled the last few yards to his cottage.