LITMIR.BIZ

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over a girl who would have titillated neither combatant had they been sober. The rivals sometimes went to the toilet to settle their differences. A laborious punch, knuckles smashed against the wall, both bodies wallowing on the floor. Then, smelling slightly of urine, back to the dance to find that the girl was dancing with someone else.

      The prettiest girls were the Scandinavian and German secretaries. They professed to have fiancés at home but were not inhibited by any such betrothals. The Finnish nannies were very young and their English very bad; the servicemen favoured the English nannies. They were untidy girls with thick legs and heavy bosoms who would be matronly at thirty-five; but word had gone round that they were easy. Not all of them were.

      Marines newly arrived were told by their colleagues: ‘You gotta screw an English nanny before you leave. Man, they—like they were frightened it was going out of fashion.’

      Love affairs sometimes developed between the servicemen and nannies and they held hands at the movies. Then one day duty called elsewhere and the nannies were stricken with grief and a sense of betrayal until a replacement moved up the line to console them. Then the nannies went home and married young men in their fathers’ firms and blamed bicycle saddles for their loss of virginity.

      Elmer inspected Mortimer with care. ‘Sure glad to have you along,’ he said after a while. ‘Make sure you fill in a membership form as soon as possible. I guess Mr. Ansell here knows the ropes.’

      ‘I sure do,’ Ansell said as they walked up the stairs. ‘And one of the main things is never to have a row with that blighter.’

      ‘I think all these men are impertinent,’ said his wife. ‘I mean just who do they think they are?’

      She was small and blonde with a pekinese face. She enjoyed giving dinner parties and was a student of etiquette.

      They sat at a table near the screen. ‘Keep the seats while I get the beers,’ Ansell said.

      Mrs. Ansell said: ‘Perhaps Richard would like something else. You never ask anyone, Giles. You just get up and say you’re buying beers. It’s just possible that I don’t want a beer either.’

      Ansell smiled but he wasn’t amused. ‘Would you like something else old man? Name your poison.’

      ‘A beer will be fine,’ Mortimer said.

      ‘Right, three beers it is.’

      ‘And a dash of lime in mine, please darling,’ said Mrs. Ansell.

      ‘You’ve never had lime before.’

      ‘Tonight I feel like a little dash of lime.’ She waited until her husband had gone to the bar. ‘I’m so afraid Giles will get set in his ways,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for his career to get into a rut.’

      She peered behind her in the gloom and waved girlishly at two young men sitting at a table littered with cans of beer. ‘There’s Peter and Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘Such nice boys.’

      The two men, who were in the commercial section, acknowledged her without enthusiasm. They were third secretaries whose wives were spending a few days in Helsinki. They reclined elegantly and drank thirstily.

      Ansell brought back the beers. ‘Peter and Geoffrey look pretty fed up,’ he said. ‘I expect they’re wondering how much their wives are spending.’

      The film was about a reformed prostitute trying to start a new life. She found her true vocation nursing in a children’s home and fell in love with a rich man-about-town. A few days before they were to be married she caught him apparently trying to interfere with a little girl from the home. Disillusioned she left town.

      Mortimer waited for disgust or incredulity to be expressed. But the audience might have been watching a travelogue. The Indians and Orientals slipped away, without emotion, accepting without question whatever was fed to them on the small silver screen. The remaining men went to the bar.

      A marine fed kopeks into a juke box and pressed half a dozen buttons. He took a big nanny on to the floor and began to dance. In one corner of the bar a drunken American wearing a tartan bow-tie said in a loud voice that he thought the film had been a lot of horse-shit. It was the only positive reaction to the film Mortimer had heard. No one responded. ‘Goddam horse-shit,’ repeated the American. ‘Isn’t that right, Mac?’ He banged an empty glass in front of the barman. ‘Scotch on the rocks?’ asked the barman. ‘A large one,’ said the American. ‘A stinking great large one. Why do they show horse-shit like that?’

      Mortimer tried to avoid his gaze; drunks had a way of picking on him. He eased his way back through the crowd to Mr. and Mrs. Ansell. They had been joined by a neat bespectacled man in a sports jacket.

      ‘Dick,’ Ansell said, ‘I want you to meet Harry Green. You’ll be seeing a lot of him. Harry this is Dick. Dick Mortimer. He’s just joined us.’

      ‘Nice to meet you,’ Green said. ‘What was the weather like in London?’

      ‘Not bad,’ Mortimer said. ‘Something of an Indian summer really. Are you on business out here?’

      ‘You could call it that,’ Ansell said. ‘Harry’s one of the scavengers they’ve been warning you about. He’s a bloody Pressman.’

      One hour later the bow-tied American had progressed to the colour problem in the States. Alcohol had uncorked vapours of madness and his eyes were wild. ‘The only reason this Goddam country hasn’t got a colour problem is because it hasn’t got any niggers.’ He rounded on a British businessman fortifying a glass of lager with Scotch. ‘Do you know something?’ The Englishman shook his head. ‘I hate niggers. I’m an honest man and I’m telling you I hate niggers. I don’t screw-up the issue with any face-saving horse-shit. I just tell you straight I hate niggers. What do you think of that?’

      The Englishman looked at him vaguely. ‘I’m sure you’re entitled to your opinion,’ he said. ‘But I wonder if you could keep your voice down a bit. I’ve got the most awful headache.’

      The American glowered at him and said: ‘Goddam nigger-lover.’

      On the other side of the bar an African giggled into his beer.

      The barman said: ‘Please keep your voice down or you’ll have to go.’

      ‘Who’s going to make me?’

      The barman shrugged, his eyes looking beyond the drunk.

      Elmer said: ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ He was chewing gum slowly. Even this action gave the impression of latent power.

      The drunk’s voice became quieter. ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’ He pushed his glass over to the barman. ‘On the rocks,’ he said.

      ‘I reckon you’ve had just about enough,’ Elmer said.

      ‘Just one more,’ the drunk said.

      ‘I reckon you’ve had just about enough.’

      ‘Make it a beer then.’

      The barman looked at Elmer who shook his head.

      ‘I don’t have to take that from you,’ the drunk said.

      ‘You sure do,’ Elmer said, chewing rhythmically.

      ‘We’ll see about that,’ said the drunk. He blundered through the dancers.

      ‘They usually say they know the Ambassador,’ Elmer said.

      Couples were smooching now. A Swedish secretary and an Italian journalist with long sideburns, a Frenchman with his hand on a German blonde’s backside. Chest to chest, hands squeezing, loins testing, feet scarcely moving, lips nuzzling.

      Ansell whose wife had left with a woman who lived in the same block watched the couples wistfully. ‘Plenty of crumpet here, you know. Why don’t you chance your arm?’

      ‘I don’t really fancy any of them,’ Mortimer

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