They Came to Baghdad Read Free Page A

Greenholtz appeared slightly taken aback. He was not used to having his dismissals treated in this approving and congratulatory spirit. To conceal a slight discomfiture he sorted through a pile of coins on the desk in front of him. He then sought once more in his pockets.
    â€œNinepence short,” he murmured gloomily.
    â€œNever mind,” said Victoria kindly. “Take yourself to the pictures or spend it on sweets.”
    â€œDon’t seem to have any stamps, either.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. I never write letters.”
    â€œI could send it after you,” said Mr. Greenholtz but without much conviction.
    â€œDon’t bother. What about a reference?” said Victoria.
    Mr. Greenholtz’s choler returned.
    â€œWhy the hell should I give you a reference?” he demanded wrathfully.
    â€œIt’s usual,” said Victoria.
    Mr. Greenholtz drew a piece of paper towards him and scrawled a few lines. He shoved it towards her.
    â€œThat do for you?”
    Miss Jones has been with me two months as a shorthand typist. Her shorthand is inaccurate and she cannot spell. She is leaving owing to wasting time in office hours.
    Victoria made a grimace.
    â€œHardly a recommendation,” she observed.
    â€œIt wasn’t meant to be,” said Mr. Greenholtz.
    â€œI think,” said Victoria, “that you ought at least to say I’m honest, sober and respectable. I am, you know. And perhaps you might add that I’m discreet.”
    â€œDiscreet?” barked Mr. Greenholtz.
    Victoria met his gaze with an innocent stare.
    â€œDiscreet,” she said gently.
    Remembering sundry letters taken down and typed by Victoria, Mr. Greenholtz decided that prudence was the better part of rancour.
    He snatched back the paper, tore it up and indited a fresh one.
    Miss Jones has been with me for two months as a shorthand typist. She is leaving owing to redundancy of office staff.
    â€œHow about that?”
    â€œIt could be better,” said Victoria, “but it will do.”
    II
    So it was that with a week’s salary (less ninepence) in her bag Victoria was sitting in meditation upon a bench in FitzJames Gardens which are a triangular plantation of rather sad shrubs flanking a church and overlooked by a tall warehouse.
    It was Victoria’s habit on any day when it was not actually raining to purchase one cheese, and one lettuce and tomato sandwich at a milk bar and eat this simple lunch in these pseudorural surroundings.
    Today, as she munched meditatively, she was telling herself, not for the first time, that there was a time and place for everything—and that the office was definitely not the place for imitations of the boss’s wife. She must, in future, curb the natural exuberance that led her to brighten up the performance of a dull job. In the meantime, she was free of Greenholtz, Simmons and Lederbetter, and the prospect of obtaining a situation elsewhere filled her with pleasurable anticipation. Victoria was always delighted when she was about to take up a new job. One never knew, she always felt, what might happen.
    She had just distributed the last crumb of bread to three attentive sparrows who immediately fought each other with fury for it, when she became aware of a young man sitting at the other end of the seat. Victoria had noticed him vaguely already, but her mind full of good resolutions for the future, she had not observed him closely until now. What she now saw (out of the corner of her eye) she liked very much. He was a good-looking young man, cherubically fair, but with a firm chin and extremely blue eyes which had been, she rather imagined, examining her with covert admiration for some time.
    Victoria had no inhibitions about making friends with strange young men in public places. She considered herself an excellent judge of character and well able to check any manifestations of freshness on the part of unattached males.
    She proceeded to smile