The lamps of the town burst into song again (how long a song it would be, who yet could tell?) as Lydgate approached the Kool Kaffi. Its afternoon clientele had long departed, leaving the fixed and comfortless bar-stools to a larger variety of accents, colours and beverages. The Australian road-men had taken their jolly swag of beer to their houses on the hill, an estate they called Little Australia. These houses had official unromantic names like PWD 157 and RSMQ 3, but the Australians had rechristened them straight out of Lawrence's Kangaroo: Knot-tu-wurri; Sleepitoff; The Homestead; Lyedown; Eezistreet. In their select colony, having inherited the pioneer tradition of early hours on week-nights, they would now be sleeping. Only one Australian, like an enharmonic chord, bridged the gap between noon and evening: Forbes of Marmion wore the same clothes, nursed the same children, drank at the same table as at lunch-time. His wife, however, had departed. He called over to Lydgate, eyes bright under the Aussie hat:
"Moving in tomorrow, old man. We're going to be nyebours, Lyddy." The golden-haired child cried loudly, trailer of forthcoming attractions.
The bar looked like the bar of Crewe station on a Sunday: the eccentric faces and talents of a low-grade touring company were ranged, the eternal wanderers, the nomads erecting nightly tents of drink-Fredericks, a thin and miniature stage colonel with a Liverpool voice, something to do with ships' stores, with a wife in Nairobi, medals for ballroom-dancing in Bootle, the desperate corn of the amateur entertainer on his lips, four thousand miles from home and wondering why; Crawshay-Davies and his wife – the wife half-Mongolian, half-German, over six feet tall, the exposure from foot to thigh in the cheongsam overfacing like an English Sunday dinner, Crawshay-Davies, plump, short, in schoolmaster's glasses, overborne and giggling; Frankie the Sudu epicene, between two worlds, growing his hair for a show for the Caliph's birthday, string-bag beside him, fingering a glass of mother's ruin; Patrick Ong, a straight cross of Irish and Chinese, on whisky, waiting to come up to the boil; Nando Tasca. Lydgate stood next to Nando Tasca. Nando Tasca said:
"I thought you a go a play a bridge."
"So did I. I thought you were going to the Dunia Hotel."
"I go a there. All beer become a very warm. No more a beer in a fridge. I come a ere."
Lydgate ordered brandy. "Tell me," he said, still irritated and disturbed, "are you what you might call a religious man?"
"What a you mean, a religioso? I a good a Catholic like all a Italian. Religion I a not think a much about. Not a need. God a take a care of all. I not a go a mass long time. I not a go a confession long time. God not a care. All that a not a matter to God. To be a good a man enough a for God." He drank his beer with a kind of panting complacency.
"What do you mean-to be a good man?" There was a sort of toothache-nagging in Lydgate's soul.
"Not a do a arm. Try a be good to a wife. Be good a to a son." He thought an instant and amended: "If a son a good to a you."
"I've had two wives," said Lydgate, "and both of them left me. Why?"
"Two wife not a possible in a Catholic a Church," said Nando Tasca. "One a wife a only. You ave a that one a wife for a always. Wife cannot a leave you." He drank a little, thinking. "Only thing is a leave a wife. I leave a Italy ten year ago, go to a Libya, to a Nigeria, many other a place in a Africa. In a Africa always a want good a man work a marble. I send a money ome when I ave a money. I still a good a usband." He thought further, drank further. "I not a think a much of a these things before," he confessed. "Ere I be a very good usband. Ere a no a girls. Ere bordello not a allowed. Very a strict. Ere I a not a slip one time even with a woman. True," he admitted, "I go a visit a village. Stay a night. In a village you must a slip with a woman. That a polite. Scortese a refuse. No good a say, 'I good a Catholic, I ave a wife in Italy, will not a slip.’ They a very annoyed, bring a knife, cut off a ead. I go to a village many a times. But in a Benghazi, in a Tripoli very a different. In a Tripoli I ave a girl. She a arf Arab arf Chadi. I live a with a er. That all a right because I a there long time. It a wrong not ave a woman. It not a nature. I not commit a sin. Non ho peccato." He placed a fat peasant's hand across his sternum. "I cannot be a with a wife, so I ave a girl. I do a no a wrong. But," said Nando Tasca, "my son like a this girl. He thinks he very young, very a and some. He think she will ave a im. But no, she know a best. She ave a me. I old man, but she ave a me. Now my son, e do a wrong. E do a wrong two times. E do a wrong because he want what a is father want. E do a wrong because e want a slip with a woman and e not a married. E not a married, a not a know what e a miss. There a no need for im want a woman. It very dangerous me not a ave a woman, very bad for a ealth. So e do wrong two times, I do no a wrong at all. I do a right to a this a woman. I send money every month, one undred, one undred and fifty, two undred. What I a can afford. I bring a my son from Italy to work. E see strange a countries, very good education for a im. It not right e ave wages as a well. I draw is a wages from Tripoli, I send a some of is a wages to this a girl. I do a right all a time. So I a religioso man." He stopped, well satisfied. Lydgate thought that he deserved more beer, so he bought him a bottle. “Tante grazie,” said Nando Tasca. "Salute:"
"The first one," said Lydgate, "left me after a few months. Mind you, I was glad to see her go. I hated the sight of her. And I hated the sight of the second one, too. But there might have been something wrong with me." He spoke now to the refrigerator behind the bar. "What is wrong with me?" he asked.
"Perhaps you not a slip with a them right," suggested Nando Tasca. "Sometimes a very difficle. Englishman not a always a very good in a bed."
"No, no, no," said Lydgate. "It wasn't that. It's tied up with everything, I think. I think it's a question of responsibility. Am I," he asked the refrigerator, "irresponsible?" The refrigerator, drinking its fill of temporary power, hummed loudly in answer.
"A man a get tired," said Nando Tasca. "A man a want a change. A man a want to live a own life. A woman differente."
"Lyddy, old man," said Forbes of Marmion; he stood behind Lydgate somewhat shyly, having left the children to crawl about under the table. "Old man, I've wanted to ask one or two things for a long time Come and sit down and I’ll buy you a drink”
“If it’s advice you want,” said Lydgate, “advice about your marriage – ”
"How did you know it was that, old man?" asked Forbes in wonder.
" – I can't give it. I can't give myself advice. I can't straighten out my own affairs."
"Come and sit down, old man, just for a minute," pleaded Forbes.
Lydgate, resigned, went with Forbes to the table. Its top was full of squashed cream-cake, peanut-shells, beer and lemonade slops, cigarette-butts that, lying in liquid, had opened up like flowers. Forbes's own child, golden and dirty, came to Lydgate as to Daddy, pounding with sticky fists on his knees. "What will you have, Lyddy, old man?" asked Forbes.
The Sino-Irishman or Hibernico-Chinese called Patrick Ong began to play the part of a drunken stage Mick, calling:
"Sure, and I'll murdher the spalpeens. Where are they till Oi get at them?" All around, as the drink warmed, the enemies were appearing, peering from behind curtains, leaning out from a limb of the turning ceiling-fan, making long noses, sneering. Lydgate's own enemy passed through from a side entrance to the inner dining-room, jockey-rolling to a collar-and-tied dinner with, Lydgate saw, the State Irrigation Officer and the State Architect and their wives. Fredericks, still by the bar, did a few steps of a soft-shoe shuffle. Sadly, with regret. Crawshay-Davies giggled.
"Now then, old man," said Forbes, "you know what it's about, because you've got the sime trouble yourself. The point is that I'm going back home in three months' time, and then what do I do with her? I mean, it's been all right here, in a wy, but it's different back home. I mean, what would my mum and dad sy if I kime back with an abo wife and a couple of kids? I never told them, see, that I'd got married. But I want to do the right thing by the missis, you see, and I've been racking my blessed brine about it. I mean, what would you do, old man?"
"It depends how you feel about her, doesn't it? If you thought the world about her, you'd put up with anything, wouldn't you, just to have her with you all the time? And the kids, of course," added Lydgate, as he gently pulled a child's questing finger away from his fly.
"Yes, there's the kids too, old man. And the wife's not a bad kiddy, really. But I don't feel I can tike her back somehow, and the kids, you know. The Austrylian Government, anywy, is very sticky about passports. I mean, wife or no wife, it doesn't mike any difference to them. They're very sticky about letting niggers and Indians and suchlike into the country. It's a white country, you see, the wy thy see it."
"You could get another contract here, perhaps."
"Thy won't wear me, old man. The other Aussies are a bit crook about my getting married like I did, see, and getting another contract on road-work is right up to the Aussies."
"Well, you could leave the wife and the kids here and send them money from home."
Forbes writhed and bit his lip several times. "It's a bit of a wiste, isn't it?" he said. "I shan't be seeing them agyne, and I'm just sending money for nothing. And I don't know whether I'll be ible to earn enough, you see."
"Well." Lydgate was losing interest. "Well, you'll have to get a divorce somehow. If she starts going back to her old trade, for instance, you'll have plenty of grounds for a divorce."
"What do you mean, old man, by her old tride?"
Lydgate stared. "Surely you know? I thought you knew."
"If you mean what I think you mean, old man, I'd sy that mikes me go a bit crook. When she kime to me she was looking for a job, see. She'd had a good job, she said, witing on tibles in some plice or other, and this Hup treated her very bad, forcing her as you might sy, and this kid was no fault of hers. And she's never done anything that you might sy is bad. She sties in the house with the kids or comes out with me now and again, a real good kiddy."
"Where is she now, then?"
"She's gone to do a bit of shopping for herself. She always does when we come in, you see, because I only get the Land Rover twice a week, and our house is nine miles up the road. It's not easy for the poor kiddy, We can get rice and that from the village near the house, but she likes to look at a few frocks and buy a bit of lipstick. She works miracles, she does, with the housekeeping money. Never asks for an extra penny, that kiddy doesn't. A real siver, she is. You've no idea how much she's been ible to tuck awy."
"Perhaps she'll do even better when you're living nearer the town."
"Yes, A real good kiddy. It's a pity I can't tike her back to Austrylia."
Nando Tasca had started making trouble. "Somebody ere at a the bar take a my watch," he accused. "I come a out with a my watch on a my wrist. A watch a with a luminoso dial. Now I look at a the time, and my watch is a not there any more. Who take a it, I want a to know."
Frankie the Sudu protested as the sharp accusing eyes swivelled in his direction. "You horrible old man," he said. "I have a perfectly good watch of my own, thank you." He had learned excellent English from a Christian Brothers' school in Shurga. "I can get as many watches as I like." Patrick Ong said, "Who's he's saying's after taking it, then? He's nothing but an old rat-catcher and fornicator." Mrs. Crawshay-Davies boomed, and Mr. Crawshay-Davies simpered, that they knew nothing of his watch. Fredericks said, "Turn it up, Tony boy. Everybody's looking at you."
"It a present from a young lady in a Tripoli. She give it a me before I come ere. I wish now I never a come a ere. Too many thiefs. Mr. Lydagate, ave a you my watch?"
"No," said Lydgate.
"Everybody say they not a ave a my watch. Too many a thiefs and too many a liars. Ladroni," he said. "Farabutti."
"Perhaps Paolo's hocked it," suggested Lydgate.
"E not a dare. E not a dare a steal from a is father. Other thing e do, a yes. Steal e not a dare. I know a my son. You not a know a im."
A sudden black-out and a rush for candles. Nando Tasca said, "I ave a my fists a ready. Anybody want a come steal a anything more in a the dark, I a ready for im.”
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