Lydia still had three boxes of the chic notepaper she had obtained from an expensive stationer in Sydney. She snivelled a little now as she admired its arty heading:
What a waste, what a bloody waste. And what a bloody waste of the best years of her life, or some of them, like being good for a long time and finding incontrovertible proof that there was no eschatological sanction for morality. Now she was back where she had started, Lydia Riggins, spinster, still attractive but not as young as she used to be. She said to Mudd:
"What are you going to do about it?"
Mudd, eager for his noon potion, opened a tin of Lydia's beer over-hastily. There was a gush like an oil-strike, and beer fountained on to the wall. Then, in beer, an octopus painted itself, its legs over-lengthening as it groped for the skirting. "Eh?" He poured the beer and was annoyed to find the glass less than half-filled. "This canned beer isn't much good really," he said. "I shall go back to the old bottle. Trouble is a lot of the local beer's so damned flat."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Oh, you can't do anything. It's the climate, I suppose. Oh, that, you mean. Well." Mudd sat down. "I ought to get in touch with the police. Then they can get in touch with Somerset House. I can't forgive him for doing what, he did."
"It wasn't altogether his fault," said Lydia Riggins. She pouted at her notepaper. "What I meant was, what are you going to do about me?"
"Well," said Mudd, sitting hunched, a jockey for the weighing-in, "well, there are certain difficulties."
"Such as?"
"Oh, the usual thing. People asking questions and so on. It's a bit awkward, really."
"And there you were," said Lydia violently, "in Shurga, and even here, saying how much you'd like me to be yours, but that was impossible, because I belonged to another man and we both felt the same about divorce and so on, having been brought up in good High Church traditions and all the rest of it. Except for that one thing, and that was only not to hurt me, Frank was at least honest."
"Frank Lydgate is a swine."
Lydia felt a twinge of quite unreasonable envy because Frank had the name and she hadn't, but then, of course, he hadn't got the Christian name, had he? She shook her head; how fuzzy the tropics made one's brain. "Well, now's your chance," said Lydia. "Not, of course, that I want to ask you to marry me."
"Of course I want to marry you. It's just a bit difficult at the moment, that's all. If you and I were somewhere else — not in Dunia at all; Dunia's a big tract of land but only a small parish — it might be different, because people wouldn't know anything." He sucked in residuary beer-froth with his tongue, as though he were finishing a small advocaat.
"The trouble is that I'm with U.N.O., posted to Dunia. I couldn't get out of Dunia if I tried. Not," he added, "that there's anywhere else left, really."
"But if everybody here were told the truth, about Frank and me. I mean, how it was all a mistake — no," she said, "that wouldn't do, would it? I'd feel such a fool. You mustn't tell anyone," she said, with quick urgency.
"Only the police. The U.K. police, not these police. Scotland Yard, or somebody," he said vaguely. "I've really not had any experience of this kind of thing before."
"And what would happen to Frank?"
"Oh, I suppose they'd send out C.I.D. men to collect him. Then he'd have to stand trial and go to prison, I suppose."
"Oh, drop the whole thing, forget it. It's not as though he's committed a real crime." She then said, "But he has. He's ruined my whole life. Ruined it completely."
"He'd no right," said Mudd, "going round and telling everybody I used the whip like he said. He deserves what's coming to him. And to think of the things he's called me. To my face, as well."
"I've got to go, I suppose," said Lydia. "I've been here just over a fortnight. This must be the shortest term on record."
"Oh, I don't know. There was one man who got out of the aircraft and then got into it again. And one P.W.D. man stayed five days. His name, strangely enough, was Jump. We called him Jump-in-and-jump-out. And there was somebody else."
"You're not very anxious to make me stay," said Lydia bitterly. "Still, it doesn't matter. It wouldn't make any difference. I wouldn't like to be in the office when the C.I.D. men come looking for Frank. In any case, this place has been pretty well ruined for me."
"There'll be no trouble about your contract," promised Mudd. "That can easily be arranged. Immediate repatriation, urgent family business. That sort of thing. Mother dying, father an invalid, got to get back at once."
"But they're both perfectly fit."
"Well, something like that. We can think about it later. The main thing is to arrange your repatriation."
"That's right. 'Clear off, Lydia dear, I've had what I wanted.' And what is there for me in that bloody place? Sydney." She shuddered. "A fair cow. And what would you do about it then, with me thousands of miles away? Why," she asked the beer-stain on the wall, "does nobody want me?"
"I want you, Lydia, really I do." He looked covertly at his wrist-watch. "I want you now, as a matter of fact. I don't much fancy lunch." His eyes gleamed in jockey concuplscence.
"Lydia Mudd," said Lydia Higgins. "A comic sort of name. But it'll have to do, I suppose. Unless something else comes along."
"Oh, no," said Mudd eagerly. Blood burned, tongue lent soul vows. "I love you, really and truly. Let me show you how much." He began to get up, or down, from his chair with the rabbity readiness of the small man.
"You randy little jockey," said Lydia tolerantly. "Some other time. Not now. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. There's a job in Aden. I saw it in the Times. Teacher in a school for stenographers. I think I could get that easily enough. The Dunia Government can pay my fare to Australia, in cash. That'll get me over to Aden and leave me enough for a few new dresses. I deserve a few new dresses."
"You deserve more than that," said Mudd. If she wouldn't now she would this evening; he kept the loving mood ticking on. "Much more. A bit of affection."
"And then you could come over for your next local leave and tell me how you feel about things. Could you do that?"
"Oh, yes," said Mudd eagerly, "that seems a good idea. I'll fix things up with Treasury this afternoon. After lunch. Though I don't much feel like lunch. You," he said. "I could eat you."
Lydia looked over the parched grass. One of the U.N. Adviser's servants was running towards Mudd's house. "Evidently the D.N.A. wants you," she said.
"That'll be something about that damn fool Eyetie, I expect," sneered Mudd.
"Poor little Tony Spaghetti."
"Poor old U.N.A. I wouldn't have his job for ten thousand a month and a knighthood."
After her Kraft cheese, cold storage lettuce, and Nescafe, Lydia wrote to the man who had, for so long, posed as her husband. She herself posed as his wife, or her notepaper posed for her. She gave him a friendly warning about Mudd. She was writing, she said, to show that there were really no hard feelings, whatever had happened. And to say that this was not really goodbye. They were bound to meet again sometime and, even if she happened to be married — really married — when they met, she hoped that would not prevent their being friends. It would be nothing new; they had lived in sin before. Licking the envelope flap, she felt a certain pride in having been so intimate with somebody who had committed so great an enormity. It made Frank seem quite distinguished. She had met Nevil Shute, she had met Sir Don Bradman, she had met Joy Nichols. And she had actually lived with Frank Lydgate, well-known bigamist.
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