CHAPTER III : DIANA, AN ITRODUCTION.
Annie rarely went to a restaurant. Usually she had a midday meal at the Hammersmith cafeteria which was cheap and wholesome. At night she made do with some fruit that kept her slim and healthy. On Saturdays we sometimes had lunch together at a nearby restaurant but not often, in which case she cooked some eggs or a steak in a frying pan on the gas ring in her room. One Saturday she called me on the phone and asked me to bring some fish and chips for three. Why three, I asked. I have a friend coming. Who? We’ll see if you remember her. I said, let me bring some Indian food, but she felt like eating fish. I said, okay, it was a longer trek but the menu was cheaper. Round about one I went on foot to Earl’s Court to a fish and chips shop I knew. Gloucester Road and South Kensington had become too high-class for the lowly fish and chips. They had Italian restaurants with all sorts of spaghetti, pasta and pizzas and other sophisticated dishes, they had Indian restaurants and a Spanish restaurant that served dishes with fried bananas, but no fish and chips. I bought a good helping for each and left wondering if my clothes and hair stank of fried fish and would the mystery visitor notice it. I knocked at the door, Annie opened and I kissed her. A young English girl got up from her armchair smiling. She came to me and we shook hands, both of us looking at each other with intense scrutiny. Do I know you? I asked. Obviously not, she said, I am Diana. And do you know me, then? Well, yes, she answered, for you were Annie’s brother at school, how could I forget? I still am her brother, I joked feebly but we laughed. So you must have been at the English School in Cairo. But were you friends with Annie? You must have been much younger. Same form, dear boy, same age, too. I left in ’56 with the Suez Crisis, with the embassy people. My father worked there. But we kept in touch with Annie and it’s quite wonderful to be together again.
I was still holding the fish and chips package with my left hand because a smiling Annie had forgotten her duties of a hostess. But she suddenly woke up and took it to the bathroom which, doubled on occasion as a kitchen. Diana and I sat down and Annie produced a bottle of wine and poured a little for each in the ordinary glasses she used at table. White wine for the fish, she said with a smile as she joined us. I looked at Diana. So young looking, almost like an adolescent of sixteen, thin, with nice legs, and as far as I could surmise under her sweater, breasts barely developed. She was a pretty English face but English without the ice, with warmth and a lovely ready smile. She noticed that as she talked with Annie I was gauging her pluses and minuses, looking at her blue eyes, contrasting her thin lipped mouth with Annie’s full, sexy lips, their noses, hers thin and slightly upturned to the strong Greek one, the complexions, one Mediterranean, the other milky white and the hair blond and short to Annie’s chestnut-colored and long pulled back in a ponytail. Well? She said. Well, what? Did you remember me? No, I said. I was just thinking how pretty you are. I blushed at my sudden audacity and Annie came to the rescue. Don’t make any plans, George. Diana has a boyfriend and it’s serious. She went to the bathroom and returned with three plates, knives and forks and the fish and chips. There were no large platters for the fish and we served ourselves out of the paper wrapping. It was still warm and delicious.
It’s our national food, Diana said. I missed it in Egypt and during the year I spent in France. I live with my mum in Fulham, which is slightly run down these days but it has two excellent fish and chips shops and this fully compensates. We ate with gusto and drank our wine and the conversation flowed easily. Diana lived for three years in Egypt. Her father was an employee at the British embassy and during that time she attended the English School. I had not the faintest recollection of her perhaps because at that time, before Suez, the school had quite a number of English pupils. Besides the English families occupied one way or another in Cairo, the English army officers based on the Canal Zone sent their children as boarders to our school. Surely with reduced fees or even totally free on scholarship. It was a good way to keep the British public school atmosphere in Egypt, to preserve and keep alive the English language, both its usage, idioms and pronunciation, which otherwise despite the teaching through books tends to be incomplete. She left when diplomatic relations between England and Egypt were severed during the Crisis and all English nationals expelled. Diana’s father was transferred to the Paris embassy but Diana went to England with her mother to their small Fulham flat to continue her schooling. After her G.C.E. exams, five subjects at the Ordinary Level, she went to her father in Paris to polish up her French.
I enrolled in a type of tutorial college such as one finds here, probably like the one you go to, George. I did french language and literature. There were a few other English students and there I met Reginald. We started going out together and he was a very enterprising sort of character. He gathered all of us English speakers and we chipped in some money and rented a tiny flat at the Quartier Latin. We called it simply the English Student Club. Well it grew because many other people joined and Reginald was always organizing events such as poetry reading, debates, talks on various subjects, parties and musical events. We became a couple although physically we were so different. He is tall and just a little plump with wavy shoulder-length, reddish brown hair and a loud voice. He’s not handsome but because of his bubbly personality one does not even notice it. And he is an intellectual. He writes poetry, writes short stories, plays the guitar and sings. He asked me to marry him and I shall probably be going back to Paris to do so. At the moment he is looking for a job because he likes it there and hopes that we shall live in Paris after we’ll be married. Otherwise we shall have to return to England. The lunch was pleasant with small talk, reminiscences and laughter. I sort of liked Diana. Her youthful looks and sociable temperament. I thought, in other circumstances, I might have tried to keep in touch with her but now she had her oversized Reginald and I was redundant. I had not yet learned the abysmal complexities of human nature.