Lace (40 page)

In the late spring the social round started again, and Kate became a little more animated, surrounded by her usual cluster of lovesick swains. But she spent Easter among the floodlit joys of
Greenways, either in gales of tears or else writing letter after letter. In early summer, Kate was off again to Cambridge every weekend, but in July her interest in that ancient university town
suddenly lapsed and letters with a Cairo postmark started arriving at Walton Street twice a week. “If you don’t tell me about him I’m going to open the next one,” said
Maxine. “
Why
won’t you tell us about him? I
know
why, because you want to marry him and you think that if you tell us he won’t ask you.”

“Bitch.”

Then one September morning a radiant Kate burst into her bedroom, her dressing gown unbuttoned, an open letter in her hand. “He
does
, he
does
, he
does
want to marry
me. Robert . . . Kate Salter . . . Mrs. Robert Salter . . . Mrs. Salter.”

“You mean it’s really
it
this time? I thought you were already engaged to be married to about fourteen men,” said Pagan, who was spending a few days in Walton Street
while Maxine was working at a house in Wiltshire.

“Only if they leave the country; only if their ships are posted abroad or their regiments go to Malaya; and I only say maybe, it’s practically a patriotic duty.”

“Yes. And look at all the scent you get and boatloads of brocade from Singapore.”

“Oh shut up! He’s going to phone me this evening. Robert’s going to phone!
Of course
I’m going to say yes. So now I can tell you. He’s been reading economics
at Cambridge, but his father’s a banker in Cairo, and he’s going back to work there. Just imagine!
Living in Egypt!
Pyramids, rose water and a great desert moon above the sail of
a
felucca
on the Nile!”

Kate then produced a sheaf of photographs of a rather portentous-looking young fellow. In none of the photographs was he smiling, and in all of them he looked as if he were about to pronounce on
something important “He looks
marvellous
,” said Pagan politely. She wondered why Kate had been so secretive about Robert, he looked such a pompous old prodnose, not worth
stealing, even if he was as handsome as Cary Grant.

Kate sat by the telephone from six o’clock in the evening until two in the morning, when Robert got through. The line was faint and indistinct and Kate had to bellow. From the next room
Pagan could clearly hear the conversation. “
Yes
, I love
you too
, oh, darling Robert, yes, yes. . . .” This went on for about twenty minutes. Jolly good thing his father
is
a banker, thought Pagan. Then there was silence.

Pagan padded into the room to find Kate in tears. “Cheer up, you’re the first one of our set to get engaged, that’s nothing to cry about. Remember the pyramids and the
moonlight over the Nile. When’s the wedding?”

“Not until summer. Robert has just started to work at his father’s bank and he can’t leave for a honeymoon as soon as he starts. Bad example, he says. But we can’t wait
nine whole months.
He wants me to go out there. He said why don’t I go with Mother, but honestly I don’t think that would be much fun and she’d hate it.” Neither of
them could imagine Kate’s mother on the pyramids under a desert moon or floating down the Nile in a
felucca.

“Why don’t
you
come with me, Pagan?” Kate asked. “If Dad stumps up for your fare.”

“Well, he certainly won’t let you go to Cairo on your own.”

Babbling with joy after a sleepless night, Kate phoned her parents at seven in the morning. “Thought something was up,” her father said, “you haven’t been home for
weeks.”

Kate decided to fly out to Cairo immediately after Christmas. Just before they left, Kate returned from a shopping trip to find Pagan lying on the living room floor, exhausted by her
determination not to cry. Kate already knew the reason. She had seen the headlines in the evening papers:
“Abdullah and Marilyn—Film Star Declares Love for Prince—Marilyn Says
They’ll Wed.”

“Is it true, Pagan?”

“Don’t know about the bloody ‘wed,’ but I’ve known about the love bit for some time.” She kicked the brass fender. “I thought she was like the rest, you
know. I mean there’s always some busty wench in the background. Marilyn was just more famous than the rest.”

She hesitated. Pagan hated to confess humiliation. “I know he’s at the Dorchester. The happy couple was photographed in front of their damned fountain, so I’ve been telephoning
all afternoon—using our secret code—but he won’t take my calls. Utter hell.”

“Be reasonable, Pagan, he might be doing something else—ordering a destroyer, or having a cup of tea at Buckingham Palace.”

“No, Kate, I can tell by his secretary’s voice—a certain nasty smoothness. I
know
the absolutely grim way he talks to anyone who’s on the blacklist.” She
sighed. “It’s easier for Abdi not to talk to me, so he won’t. Frantically convenient, being royal.”

For days afterward Pagan sat in her mother’s apartment looking out over the leafy treetops of the square but seeing nothing. She didn’t cry: she wouldn’t see anyone: she
wouldn’t go to Cornwall and she wouldn’t leave her bedroom. Her self-assurance had been shattered by Abdullah’s behaviour and it was as if one of the guy-ropes holding her upright
had been cut. He had deliberately broken their special bond of intimacy and trust and seemed to consider that their friendship—which Pagan had treasured—was at an end.

Pagan only roused herself from her lethargy when it was time to pack for their trip to Egypt.

Robert met them at the Cairo airport and Kate flew into his arms. As the three of them climbed into the back of his Cadillac, Pagan gave Robert a swift, sidelong look. He was
certainly good-looking, but perhaps a bit
dull
?

But Cairo wasn’t dull, it was a dusty, beige, hot, urban tumult. Camels and donkey carts trotted alongside swaying trams and automobiles. Pagan saw a tent pitched next to a modern
apartment building, by a clump of palm trees. The skinny brown men on the sidewalks wore black skullcaps and what looked like crumpled pajamas or white, vaguely biblical nightgowns. Fatter men were
draped from head to toe in white sheets; hurrying women were shrouded to the eyes, downcast in dusty black. Fly-covered beggars hunched on the sidewalks, newsboys shrilled and sweetmeat vendors
crouched, languidly wafting a fly-swatter over their wares. Some shops sported neon signs, others were grimy with peeling, sun-faded paint. Any spare wall space was plastered with posters of
General Naguib, the new military governor of Egypt.

Robert’s widowed father’s apartment hung above the city. High, cool, white rooms led into high, cool, white rooms. The servants, all male, wore white uniforms with
a dark red fez, and had all been with the family for years. From the roof garden, the girls could gaze down upon the languid Nile as it wriggled through the desert on its way to the sea. Faintly
from across the river they could hear the sounds of Cairo: the whine of traffic, ululations, klaxon shrieks; the
muezzin
calling the faithful to prayer over the P.A. system on top of every
mosque. Above them, black kites swooped over the apartment buildings, the mosques, domes, tombs, the palaces and slums of the dusty city.

Soon Kate wore a marquise diamond engagement ring that she flashed as much as possible. She doted on Robert, repeated everything he said, followed him around like a faithful spaniel and was
terrified of playing bridge with him in case she didn’t bid correctly. Pagan thought this very bad for Robert, who was self-satisfied enough as it was.

Every night Kate nipped along the passage to Robert’s bedroom where, to her sorrow, not much happened. Robert was out almost before he was in. She didn’t even have time to feel
frustrated. So she faked. Then she went to the bathroom and masturbated.

Apart from that drawback Kate loved the leisurely life of Cairo. In the afternoon the girls played tennis at the club, where all the British gathered, swam in the pool, then played bridge for
very small stakes until it was time for dinner. There were dances or parties almost every night: once they went to a ball at the British Embassy, surrounded by traditional Britishers of the sort
that look like film extras: peppery old colonels, balding diplomats, dowagers shrouded in black taffeta.

Naturally they visited the pyramids as soon as they could and were duly photographed on camels. Having discovered that horses were for hire, Pagan immediately mounted one of the
depressed-looking nags and, much to its surprise, galloped off into the desert. When she returned, Robert was furious and said that never,
ever
were they to go anywhere alone. When he took
them to the bazaar he warned them to stay very close to him. They sniffed the scent of goat, tanning hides, tobacco, mint tea, cheap jasmine and patchouli oil.

All the narrow, winding alleys looked exactly the same as the streets leading off them. Robert led the way and their driver walked immediately behind. Nonetheless, the girls were pinched and
pummeled, as they threaded their way down through rows of stalls and shops smaller than a hotel bathroom. Inside, they listened to the clack of Arabic and gazed at Persian carpets, delicate wood
carvings, beautiful teak boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, high-piled bales of brilliantly coloured gauzes. Much to their initial embarrassment, Robert bought nothing at the bazaar
without haggling.

Robert didn’t talk about money, but he thought about it a lot. He was a human calculator; everything he did and spent was balanced in advance against possible return; he kept a little
notebook in which, unknown to Kate, he recorded every penny he spent on her—the original orange tree; every bunch of roses; every generous tip at the Savoy.

Pagan had lots of beaus. She was making a determined effort to distract her mind from Abdullah by never giving herself time to think about him. In one frenetic burst of energy she decided they
ought to learn Arabic and produced a suitable phrasebook. “You can learn in only eighteen lessons,” she explained to Kate, “and we can practice on the butler. If we turn up late,
we can mutter
Kulli shayy fiyid Allah
(everything is in God’s hands) . . . hey, listen to this.
Ma takhafush, ehna asakir inkelizi
, that’s ‘do not be afraid, we are
British soldiers.’ It’s followed by
akhad el-kull we-addi lek bih wasl
—that means, ‘I will take everything and give you a receipt.’ No wonder the British Empire
crumbled. This might be useful,
ma kuntish azunnek ragil gabih kide
. That’s ‘I did not think you were such an untrustworthy man.’ Oh, dear. . . .”

Pagan made sure she was occupied from morning until night, although there were many times when she lay on her back, tears dripping from the corner of her eyes and trickling onto her damp pillow.
She couldn’t sit still and she couldn’t stand being alone. When Robert and Kate went off by themselves, she immediately picked up the telephone and organised an impromptu party on the
terrace; the engaged couple would return to the clink of glasses and laughter as Pagan imitated a belly dancer or whirled on the roof garden in a satirical Highland reel. She quickly became one of
the most sought-after girls in Cairo, and it was obvious that Robert’s father, a sardonic man with eyes like small black pebbles, was intrigued by her exuberance. In contrast to most of the
languid small-talking women of Cairo, Pagan played wild tennis, wild bridge, laughed and danced through the night, was never seen on a darkened balcony. She had more style than the rest of the
women put together, he decided, watching her move along the terrace with her impatient, long-legged walk, half-stride, half-swoop. By contrast, Kate trotted adoringly behind Robert, agreed with
everything he said—especially if she didn’t understand it—and looked a little insipid.

Eventually, Robert’s father took his son to one side and, without preamble, said, “I’ve made a few inquiries in England and I don’t know whether you realise it, but Pagan
would be a far more suitable wife for you than Kate, you know. She’s far better connected, and although there’s no money, she owns a manor house in Cornwall.”

Robert looked astonished. “That belongs to her mother, doesn’t it? The health farm?”

“No, it belongs to Pagan. Her grandfather left it outright to her, and her mother pays her a token rent for the place. There’s quite a lot of land with it. Poor Kate doesn’t
seem about to shine in society as your wife
should
. Have a think about it.”

When Robert’s father said “Have a think about it,” he was giving an order, as Robert well understood. None of his Cambridge contemporaries would have stood for such parental
interference in their love life, but Robert was neither surprised nor resentful. If his father felt that interference was necessary, then it probably was; he and his father thought in a
surprisingly similar way. Besides, Robert’s future depended upon his father.

A few evenings later, under the green palms of the roof garden, the two men talked again. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Dad, and I see that perhaps you’re
right,” Robert said, as he slowly sipped his whiskey and gazed at the dust-veiled citadel, a twelfth-century mountain fortress on the horizon. “Perhaps I was unwise.”

His father was pleased. He wouldn’t have to stop Robert’s allowance and he wouldn’t have to send both girls back to England.

“Well, of course, it leaves one in a slightly embarrassing position,” said his father, “but I have a plan.”

The following weekend, both girls had been invited to Alexandria by a rich Levantine widow with a great reputation as a hostess. At the last minute, Robert announced he wouldn’t be able to
go. “I’ve got a lot of work to catch up with after an unexpected rush this week,” he explained. He also made it clear that he did not want Kate to leave him, so eventually Pagan
set off alone for Alexandria.

That evening Robert drove Kate out to the Auberge des Pyramides for dinner. They watched belly dancers gyrate in their oddly determined manner to the rhythmic tinkle and clash of the gold and
silver coins that hung in ropes around their rotating rumps. Then Robert suggested they watch the moonlight falling on the pyramids, as lovers have done since travel brochures first were
written.