Hotel Mirador (9 page)

But she sat beside him without glancing at it, dropped her white straw hat on the floor at her side and breathed in the scents of almond trees and mimosa, of Damascus roses and ginger blossom.

“Mmmm. This is a sweet place, Mike. I like it better than any other part of Shiran.”

“Then you haven’t the soul of a tourist,” he stated. “They all flock to the medina and the souks, and drive out to the marabout tombs. Have you ever wondered why Morocco should have had so many holy men?”

“The country certainly abounds with their tombs. Were they extra specially good Moslems?”

“No, most of them were family men who showed extreme wisdom in some direction. They became venerated by their own generation and when they died they were buried and topped off with stone, to form a shrine.”

“It’s not a bad thing to venerate wisdom.” She paused. “I’d like to drive through the medina, but I understand it’s better to do it with an escort. How about going with me?”

If he was startled, it showed only in the few seconds he allowed to elapse before replying, “Tomorrow, maybe. Don’t bring anyone else.”

“All right, it’s a date.” Sally cloaked her jubilation with a request. “May I have some lemonade?”

“Of course. I told Yussef to bring out the cool drinks the moment you arrived, but he seems to have sloped off.”

“I’ll get them.”

He was suddenly bad-tempered, and gave the cane table a shove. “No, stay where you are.” Then he yelled, “Yussef!” There was no answer and he thrust himself up on to his good leg and reached for the bell on the wall.

But before his thumb could press, he began to slide on the tiled floor, and there was nothing to hold on to. Sally slipped under his raised arm to support him, smiled into his angry face.

“Lesson One,” she said. “Don’t do anything swiftly, or when you’re in a temper. Keep your stick handy and make sure that the rubber tip is always in new condition.”

He sank back into his chair, breathing heavily. “Damn everything,” he said bitterly. “You don’t know how tired of myself I am
!
”

“I think I do,” she said softly and cheerfully. “It’s just something to live through, Mike—not so bad as losing someone you love. Do you ever think of that girl?”

“No, never.”

“Good: you couldn’t have cared for her very much.” She smiled. “I
think
you must have been a very impatient little boy.”

He answered, low-voiced, “You never seem to realize how
...
terrible it is to be without the use of a limb. I’ve no job, no future
...”

“Don’t be absurd. You have your hands and a typewriter, and if you’ll go to England and get treatment
...”

“That’s out. I’m staying here.”

“Don’t snap my head off. It seems such a waste, that’s all.” She looked at the fleshless leg in its neat khaki stocking, saw the stark kneecap. “Do you still get pins and needles?”

“Sometimes.”

“How does it feel when you’re in bed?”

“It doesn’t, but I get an ache in the thigh.”

“That’s a good sign. I’d like to give you half an hour’s massage twice a day, and get you into the swimming pool every afternoon.”

“Not the pool,” he said abruptly.

“We could find that lagoon Dane told me about.”

“I know it quite well.” He shoved back the usual untidy lock of reddish hair, and asked offhandedly, “What sort of treatments do you have at your Orthopaedic Home?”

“We have hydrotherapy tanks—they’re just large enough for children to splash about in, wearing an inflated tube. Then we have the jet pulsator bath—a controlled mixture of air and water played at pressure on to the affected parts. There are walking chairs for toddlers, a gym room fixed up with all kinds of gadgets. Some patients need mud baths and electro-therapy; others need to be kept happy and well while their legs are in irons and growing strong. There are steel bars everywhere, to encourage patients to us their limbs. You see, when a limb do
e
sn’t work, the rest of the body has to be extra fit, so that plenty of good blood is pumped around. I had a little girl with a spinal injury
...”

“All right,” he said brusquely.

She was silent for a moment. Then: “You know, Mike, your attitude makes everything more difficult for yourself and for me. Before your accident you were such an aboundingly healthy creature that now you find yourself growing ashamed, whi
c
h is a natural reaction, but awfully silly.”

“If it had been a war injury or the result of a plane crash,” he said jerkily, “I wouldn’t care. I just went mad in a new oar and smashed myself up. It was puerile!”

“Very well, so it was, but it’s over. You’d soon forget it if you could walk.”

His chin went stubborn. “Can you promise me Fil walk normally again?”

“No. As a matter of fact I don’t
think
you will, and your leg won’t put on much flesh, either. After treatment, you’ll probably have a thinnish leg and a limp, but you’ll be able to drive a car and do your job.” She smiled at
him
mischievously. “And you’ll have the girls all over you. They’re sunk when they meet a handsome red-haired male with a limp.”

Mike didn’t smile. He sighed. “You can try massage, if you like, but it won’t work any wonders.”

Sally dropped a cushion on die tiles and sat on it; she rolled down his sock. The leg was pale, except where a purple scar ran behind the knee, but Sally had seen worse. This leg might have looked almost normal on a thin man. Her sensitive fingers held the calf muscle, squeezed here and there, and discovered by faint movement that he felt it slightly.

Yussef came hurrying out with the tray of drinks. Mike caught Sally’s eye and forbore to shout at the servant, and when they were alone again Sally sat back and held out a hand for her glass. With her feet tucked in, her hands about the ice-cold drink and her face raised, she looked young and gay and appealing. Mike sipped, and looked at her, then put down his glass.

In a voice quite different from his usual one, he asked, “Are you my kind of girl, Sally? Or am I just The Leg to you?”

Sally gave these queries the interest they deserved. “I don’t think I’m your kind of girl—not quite. And you’re not The Leg to me. I haven’t really thought much about your leg till this morning; there seemed to be so much else to think about first. I hope that now you’ve forgiven me for coming, we’re going to be friends.”

“If I refuse to go to England for trea
t
ment but am willing to do whatever you want right here in Shiran, will you stick by me till I can walk a little?”

“I think I can promise that, Mike—unless Dane sends me away.”

“He can’t do that!”

He stopped speaking and watched the road. The car he had glimpsed turned on to the drive and purred round to the foot of the steps. It halted and the door opened. “Speak of the omnipotent,” said Mike under his breath. Sally stayed very still, watching Dane as he took the steps in one stride and came lazily along to where they sat. Then she stopped watching him, because she was still seated on the cushion and he was a mile above her.

“Hallo, there,” he said nonchalantly. “Mind my joining you?”

“Not at all,” Mike replied, in the guarded tones he reserved for his cousin. “Grab a drink and take a seat.”

“Thanks.” Dane poured, fished melting ice from the jug and clunked it into his glass. “I’m on my way to look at a proposition and thought I’d call in. You two look cozy.”

“Sally’s just taken her first sight of my leg. She wasn’t horrified.”

“Nothing in the least unpleasant about it,” commented Sally. She put down her glass and touched Mike’s knee lightly with her forefinger. “There’s probably a fibrous stiffening of the joint that needs ordinary massage, but otherwise the prescription will be regulated exercise of different kinds. I’ll have to take Mike’s X-rays along to Dr. Demaire and get his instructions.”

“Demaire!” exclaimed Mike. “He’s a g.p.”

“I don’t suppose you have a local medical man who’s qualified in physiotherapy, have you?”

“Demaire’s pretty good and he’s studied Mike’s case,” said Dane. “See him by all means, Sally, You might get him out here to see Mike, as well.”

“Oh, no. No more doctors!” Mike pushed his glass well away and rested an arm on the table. “I’ll have what Sally can give or nothing at all.”

“I’m not supposed to work without a doctor,” she said lightly.

“All right. See Demaire, but don’t bring him here.” Dane drained his glass, said decisively, “You’re being a fool, Mike. Let’s wade into this business and get your leg as near right as we can, without delay. You’ve messed about long enough.”

Mike’s chin stuck out, obstinately. “I’m not going to be pushed around. I’ve said I’ll let Sally have a go at it, and I will, but I won’t have you and Demaire bossing me while she’s about it I know I owe you more than I can ever repay
...”

“Shut up. The really big debt you owe is to yourself. Get up on your legs and use them. If you need someone to lean on, I’m right here in Shiran, and you can call me at any time. For Pete’s sake stop pitying yourself and get cracking!”

Sally said hurriedly, but pacifically, “There’s no need for heat. Mike, tell me where I can find your hospital file and I’ll fetch it now.”

“I’ll get it,” said Dane, and he stalked into the house. Mike glanced down at Sally’s bronze hair and said a little breathily, “If Dane weren’t so darned healthy himself, he might understand. I believe he’s beginning to wish he’d never brought you here.”

Sally considered this for a
n
instant. “You may be right, but it doesn’t make any difference. I’m here for as long as you need me. But promise me something. Don’t quarrel with Dane. He wants to see you debonair and taking your pick of the girls again. Please don’t quarrel with him.” There was no time for more. Dane appeared, carrying a fibre-board file which seemed to be full of X-ray films and papers. He reached a negligent hand down to Sally, pulled her to her feet, and said pleasantly, “I think Sally might as well see Demai
r
e today, if it can be arranged. Either she or I will let you know the result this evening, Mike. We’ll push off now.”

“Sally, too?”

“She may as well. Thanks for the drink, old chap. See you later.”

Sally gathered her hat, smiled at Mike and felt herself pushed firmly but gently down the steps to the path. Dane called to the driver of the car which had brought her, and told him he would be driving mademoiselle himself. Sally was put into the front seat of the silver and blue affair and Dane set it moving. They waved to Mike, who made no attempt to wave back, and slipped out on to the road, turning uphill away from Shiran.

“You’ve upset your cousin,” said Sally crossly. “Why do you do it?”

“Someone has to keep Mike’s feet on the ground,” Dane answered calmly, “or he’ll lose sight of the reason you’re here.” He paused. “Nice work, Sally.”

“What was?”

“The little-girl pose, kneeling at his feet. What comes next—your head against his knee, and family reminiscences?”

Sally was angry but determined not to show it. “Does it matter? You want Mike to get back his interest in life and I’m trying my hardest, in the only way I know, to see that you get your money’s worth. It’s taken me eight solid days to get Mike’s confidence, and you had to walk in and do your best to shatter the whole thing!”

“Oh, come. Mike knows me. He probably thinks I browbeat you as well.”

“And you do!”

“Not really; with you I only play at it
.
You’re not difficult to manage.”

“Is that contempt or flattery?”

“I’m afraid it’s only the truth. Not that I don’t think you could be damned difficult if you were given your head
...
or if your feelings became involved. You’re probably the type who’d defend her patients and adorers to the death.”

“Oh, go climb a tree!”

He laughed briefly. “I’m your employer ... remember?”

“I don’t work for an employer. I work for the patient and the doctor. Do you know what Mike thinks? He believes you’re sorry you brought me here.”

Oddly, this created a silence. Dane went on driving through groves of fruit trees which gave way to dry and dusty scrub. They were presented with a view. To the left, not a hundred yards from the road, a chasm stretched ahead, its sides thick with low wattle bush and its rim ornamented with clumps of prickly pear. To the right, the slopes were more gentle and clad with cultivation, much of it hedged in by pale pink oleanders and watercourse palms.

This was more like the Morocco Sally had imagined once or twice before coming here; the land of yellow
-
green hills, of mosaics and shrines and peasants of Moor and Berber stock. There was one lone mosque within a mud wall. It had a minaret with primitive spikes sticking out of it from top to bottom; presumably they were rungs, to be scaled several times each day by the muezzin who gave his unearthly call to prayer from the tower.

“Did I let slip a brick of some kind?”
she asked.

“Nothing bigg
e
r than you’ve dropped before, little one,” he said non-committally. “In some ways you’re so uninhibited that you take me by surprise. If I were sorry you’re here, I’d send you away.”

“I doubt if you could, you know. I’m almost sure that if you tried it, Mike would take me on himself.”

“When you’re a resident here, as I am, it’s quite easy to arrange for a visa to be withdrawn. Not that I’d do it to you,” very coolly, “but just don’t start talking about transferring your allegiance.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. What I was getting at, really, was that I’m beginning to feel that Mike is my job, and I do like to see a job right through. At times, during the past week, I’ve had a glimpse of the sort of person Mike was before his accident. He must have been great fun.”

“But his motto was love ’em and leave ’em. Remember that.”