Читать книгу Household Ghosts: A James Kennaway Omnibus - James Kennaway - Страница 23

THREE

A SOLDIER DOES not most need a brain to think with, nor yet an arm to strike with; he needs teeth to hang on with, and Jock had those teeth. He went all the way back home, that same Monday morning, and he washed and shaved. He brushed his hair, he put on his best tunic, pulling it tight under his belt so it had no creases, he stared at himself in his mirror, saw to it that his teeth were clean and he said ‘Resilience, boys, resilience.’ He put clean stockings on, and adjusted the bright red flashes on his garters. He dusted his brogues and polished the badge in his bonnet and said, ‘Aye, and we’re dead but we won’t lie down, come away then, come away.’ He polished the buttons on his coat and turned the collar neatly down, he pulled his bonnet over his eye, then with a swagger and a bright dash he swung down to the bridge, across the park, back to barracks.

He must have understood that they all knew as soon as he put his big nose through the door of the ante-room soon after one o’clock. He twitched his nostrils and his eye roved round the room. Officers were huddled over beers and pink gins. They glanced up at him and mumbled ‘good-morning’ or nodded with studied normality. Barrow had gone into lunch, but most of them were there talking and smoking. Jock gave a little smile as he strode up the middle of the room to the big log fire. Turning his back to it, he lifted up the pleats of his kilt, to warm his bare bottom.

‘A-huh,’ he said, ‘Dusty would you be so kind as to push that tit in the wall there, and we’ll see if I can get myself a drink.’

When the waiter appeared with a tray in his hand, Jock shouted at him across the room.

‘Good-morning, Corporal.’

‘Morning, sir.’

Jock eyed him. ‘You’re feeling the heat, Corporal?’

The Corporal smiled uncertainly: the other officers were all watching now.

‘It’s cold, sir.’

‘No wonder it’s cold, lad. You’re nude. Do up your collar button.’

‘Sir.’ The Corporal obeyed very quickly and Jock said:

‘And you can bring me one hell of a whisky.’

‘Sir.’

‘Steady, steady; wait there, laddie. What are you drinking, Charlie?’

Charlie hesitated, ‘Actually, thinking of lunch … you know …’ he mumbled on.

‘What are you drinking, eh? I’m asking something that’s a question of fact.’ Jock gave a little grin, and looked all round the room. ‘Not just a rumour,’ he said, and there was a little stir. ‘What’s in your hand?’

‘Pink.’

‘And one hell of a pink,’ Jock gave the order.

‘You, Jimmy?’

‘Bottle of beer.’

Jock turned to the waiter again: ‘And two bottles of beer in one can. C’mon, c’mon gents, make your orders. It’s too cold a morning not to have something to drink … Well, well; and what’s news today? Eh, is there no news?’ His head on one side. ‘Surely we’ve some bit of gossip, eh, MacKinnon?’

‘It snowed,’ MacKinnon said, rather frightened, and then he blushed. Jock gave a roar of laughter.

‘Plus ten for observation, lad,’ he said, but with a broad grin that would have made anything he said sound pleasant. It was as if the officers sitting there were tired members of some orchestra, and in the hands of the cleverest conductor. Slowly, with something less immediate than magnetism, more like a sort of suction, he was drawing life out of them. They all began to look up, and take notice. They stared at him as if it were the first time they had seen him; and perhaps more – as if it were the last time.