Moroccan Traffic (16 page)

There was a thoughtful silence. Two cars without lights approached, shaved and passed us. He said, ‘I know. I remember buying it, and thinking it ought to go faster than a ‘26 Sunbeam. Silly, silly pride. You didn’t take a course on the Harley-Davidson?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Pity,’ he said; and turning the key in the ignition, resumed our erratic journey.

I hadn’t noticed, until then, how he was steering. It hadn’t mattered, on an empty road lit by sunshine. On a lightless road, occupied by lightless traffic, it was dangerous. We met, fairly soon, another bicycle. We shot through a village, a skein of lamps overhead, and plunged immediately into frightening darkness. The powerful light of the bike picked up, disastrously and too late, a group of camels plodding homewards with their driver. He missed the main group, but a youngster, snorting, ran zigzagging before us for half a mile. At that point, again, it seemed to me that I could hear the vintage car engine behind us. Then the beast ran aside, and the bike resumed its thundering top speed again.

The headlight picked up the blank red wall of an enclave, and then a row of booths half-lit by candles. Blackness, wind, the whipping of trees and, suddenly, a single lightbulb illuminating a cubicle filled with spare engine parts, and another lined with bottles and tins, and yet another filled with sacks of provender. The Electra Glide swooped and swirled, never quite hitting anything but never quite keeping straight. From time to time, when he skidded or slowed, I thought I heard the chug of the Sunbeam. I said, ‘You don’t know how to drive this thing, do you?’

For a while, he didn’t reply. A dog dashed out and was nearly killed. A lorry approached, and we bounced into a ditch and back out of it. Eventually he said, ‘I have a slight problem. Don’t worry. Do you see something ahead?’

I thought he was testing my eyesight. Naturally, I saw something ahead. I saw a bright rectangle of flares, and a tent illuminated from within, and a number of jack-booted men wearing breeches and helmets. I said, ‘Yes, of course. It’s a road block. Shouldn’t you be slowing down?’ And then, at last, I realised what was wrong. A fawn-coloured face and eyes which, viewed at close quarters were quite ordinary and indeed rather blank. Eyes without bifocal glasses.

I said, ‘
You can’t see where you’re going!’

‘The central problem facing mankind. It’s all right,’ Johnson said. ‘I have another pair in Marrakesh. Just tell me from time to time where the road is. I suppose we have to stop?’

For a moment, I think he actually intended to crash on. If he did, he thought better of it. Already, the police were flagging him down. He slowed. He stopped. A dark, burly man stepped to his side with a dog and said, ‘Monsieur, your papers, please?’ And Johnson slowly dismounted.

I got down too, because the dog was going crazy. In hot weather, I don’t fancy Alsatians. Johnson didn’t fancy this one either: he kept side-stepping as the dog pranced and pawed at him. The burly man said, ‘Monsieur? Perhaps monsieur would accompany me to the cabin?’

There was a hut by the tent, with loud radio music coming from it. I said, ‘Do you want me to come too?’

Johnson produced the hint of a smile. It was not something he did very often, and when he did, his glasses usually hid it. This time there was something about it that worried me. He said, ‘There is absolutely no need for you to disturb yourself. You are totally covered by insurance.’ Then, wandering off, he followed the man into the hut.

There followed a wait. Traffic arrived, was stopped, and either showed its papers or had its particulars taken down. A lorry found itself impounded. A flock of goats was allowed by. The air grew cooler and I began to think with increasing kindness of hotels and their minor facilities. I went to find myself a large bush, was restrained, and ended up with a pail in the comfort tent. I emerged, my view of Johnson much jaundiced. He had still not appeared. I returned to the bike and my viewpoint. A pale blue Sunbeam was standing at the road block. Seb Sullivan said, ‘Wendy! I thought you’d be home by now! Is there anything wrong?’

‘They’re questioning Johnson,’ I said. I didn’t feel like calling him Mister. I had stopped thinking of him as Mister some time ago.

‘Now, why would that be?’ Sullivan said. He looked cheerful and friendly and Irish. In the yellow light, his hair turned the shade of thick honey. Beside him, Ellwood Pymm was asleep, his crewcut lolling against the leather upholstery. I wished again that Ellwood Pymm had gone with Johnson and I’d come back with Seb, even though Pymm could never have stood all the worry.

I didn’t know why they were questioning Johnson. Before I could say so, I saw the hut door was opening, and several people were leaving together. In the middle was Johnson, without his spectacles. A look of demure complaisance appeared to have become permanently attached to his features. The men round about him looked dazed. The dog, which had been in the hut too, suddenly bounded forward and began to make barking jumps at Seb Sullivan. Ellwood Pymm woke up and said, ‘What?’

‘It’s a Moroccan dog,’ Johnson said. ‘Very friendly. Offer it sugar. You will excuse us, Seb, won’t you? We have to get on to Marrakesh.’

He had got tanked up in some way in the hut. I could hear it in his voice. I said, ‘Why don’t I go back in the Sunbeam?’

‘Why not?’ Johnson said. He waved a hand, and made his way to the Harley. He had found his way into the saddle when the dog, leaping into Seb’s car, went off its head. Ellwood Pymm’s small pink mouth again opened, and Sullivan started to stride about, shouting. The officer of the patrol invited them, politely, to enter the hut. I walked across to the Harley and stopped. ‘Want a lift?’ Johnson said.

I said, ‘They’ve found something in Colonel Sullivan’s car.’

‘What?’ said Johnson. ‘A pound of pork sausages?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said; although I thought I did. ‘We ought to help him.’

‘You help him,’ said Johnson. ‘I’m going to Marrakesh.’

But he didn’t immediately go. We stared at one another. Of course, he was no special friend of Seb Sullivan’s. And if Sullivan was up to something, it wouldn’t do Sir Robert any good if I were involved in it. I said, ‘I don’t like your driving.’

‘You’ve got a point,’ Johnson said. ‘Want me to show you how it works? If you drive a car, you can drive this, I promise you.’

I gave this serious thought. I had never driven a Harley-Davidson but, on reflection, I thought I could do it better than he did. He showed me the accelerator, and the brakes, and how the stereo worked, and we set off for Marrakesh in a series of flashes which might have been lightning but which seemed to me to be particularly directed to the hem of my skirt.

I didn’t mind. I sat in the vast bucket seat, and he sat with his hands on my shoulders, murmuring occasional directions, and frequent remarks of a vaguely irresponsible nature. Every now and then his hand would slip from its grasp and I thought he was going to sleep, until he began talking again. Then at last, the lights became much more frequent, and the traffic was thick, and I knew we were on the outskirts of Marrakesh and I would be home soon, unless I killed somebody.

Home? We had stalled at the traffic lights when he said, ‘Not the hotel. Miss Helmann, where can we put you so that no one can trouble you for a day or two?’

I said, ‘My mother’s at the hotel. I’d have to. . .’

‘Of course she’d have to know where you are. But it’s not ten o’clock yet. Where will she be? With Mo Morgan?’

I didn’t know how he knew that she and Mo Morgan were spending the evening together. I said, ‘Maybe.’

‘So where does he live?’ Johnson said. ‘Maybe that would be as good a place as any for you. I notice he doesn’t advertise where he stays.’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ I said. I knew where he was. He had told me.

The lights changed, and I restarted the engine and bounded into the centre of town. I was thinking. Johnson didn’t interrupt me. After a while I said, ‘He’s at a small hotel near the square. He asked me to keep it secret.’

‘All right. Stop,’ Johnson said. I juddered to the side of the road, and shut off the engine and turned. My clothes were not only soaked, my nose was dripping with sweat. Johnson dropped his hands and sat still behind me. He said, ‘You can get close and then walk, if you don’t want me to know. Or I can go with you and tell Morgan what has happened. Or I can just go with you and see you to the door. Morgan may not be there. And there is some danger.’

He had put it fairly. I got off the bike, my knees trembling, and let him take my place. I let him drive me to the hotel, and wait while I asked at the door for Mo Morgan. It just happened that Morgan was there, and heard his name, and came jumping down the steps and saw Johnson too. He said, ‘Holy cow, an elopement! Angel, your mother is here, and will be furious. Come in! Come in, both of you.’

It was not what I had chosen, but it was not all that bad. I wavered into the hall and stood waiting. Morgan walked round the bike and Johnson, declaiming poetry. I heard him say eventually, ‘The worthy porter will stable it. Come in and get drunk. Or no. I see the deed has been well done already.’

His sharp face full of malice, he helped Johnson dismount. I saw them both come to the doorway. I saw Mo Morgan stop. He said, ‘No further, I think. What’s the reason for this?’ His voice was sarcastic.

I felt a small pang of conscience for Johnson. Having the upper hand of Johnson rather pleased me. I said, ‘We were kidnapped at Essaouira. Colonel Sullivan freed us. Really, Mr. Johnson had something to celebrate.’

Mr. Morgan, executive director, was staring at me with narrowed, velvety eyes. ‘And you? You’re all right, Wendy?’

I nodded. ‘I got away before they could find anything out. Mr. Johnson helped me.’

‘Like that?’ Morgan said. He released Johnson’s arm, and the Great Painter reached for a chairback and sat down.

‘Been there, seen it, done it, bought the T-shirt. More or less like that,’ Johnson said. ‘I rather need somewhere to sleep.’

‘I rather imagine you do,’ said Mo Morgan. ‘You can have my bed for an hour. After that, you can look out for yourself. Who kidnapped you?’

‘Ellwood Pymm,’ Johnson said.

He was totally smashed. Morgan got him up to his room, while I waited below in the manager’s office. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke, my mother was sitting opposite in a fog of glandular scent, smoking oppressively. ‘So!’ she said. ‘You are deflowered by three Arabs? How will you know who is the father?’

Which was where I came in. ‘Well, you didn’t want Johnson,’ I said. ‘Who mentioned Arabs?’

‘Mo Morgan,’ said my mother. ‘He obtained the story from your Mr. Johnson, he says. Mo wishes to talk to you. Not without me, he will not. I also wish something. I wish an insightful interview with your Mr. Johnson.’

I quailed. Johnson Johnson and my mother had never met. They had seen each other once, in a café, before the regrettable episode of the sugar lumps. In the terrestrial globe, there were no two people who had less in common. I was half-awake, and aching and hungry. I wasn’t up to my mother. I said, ‘I’m going to talk to Sir Robert tomorrow, and that’s enough. Let’s go back to our own hotel and damn everyone.’

‘Angel,’ said Mr. Mo Morgan, inserting his bony brown nose through the doorway. ‘I have news for you. Your mother goes back to your hotel. You sign in here as Miss Smith of London, bed and breakfast, no questions asked. And no one, from this moment onwards, knows where to find you in Marrakesh except Sir Robert, your mother and me.’

‘And Mr. Johnson,’ I said. ‘Is he in favour or out?’

‘A bum self-employed painter with no index-linked company pension?’ said my mother, repeating herself. ‘You said he and Pymm were bad news.’

‘I thought he was,’ I said, looking at Morgan, company director, who was shaped like a mangetout with a pigtail, and was a computer genius, none the less, who climbed Toubkal. I added, ‘So did you, back on the doorstep. But he got me away from the aggro, for nothing.’

‘Really nothing?’ said Morgan. ‘No hints, no questions, no figures?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He got me out. If he’d done nothing, he would have heard all the figures.’

‘So would Pymm,’ said my mother. ‘Pymm, his rival. This is why you were rescued!’ she exclaimed, coughing triumphantly. ‘This criminal Johnson, his fortune depends on MCG! He blows up Kingsley’s, he reads the documents, he does not wish poor Mr. Pymm to learn the up-to-date figures. He wins pinkie points by appearing to rescue my Wendy. And here she is, in his clutches.’

‘Brownie points,’ I said automatically. Nastily, it could all be true.

‘But why should Johnson Johnson bring her here?’ Morgan said. ‘Why not to the MCG place in the souks? He’s MCG’s backer. He needs those figures before tomorrow’s meeting. He doesn’t need me around.’

‘Yes, he does,’ said my mother. ‘He needs to get the figures and kill both you and Wendy. This hotel will blow up. We are leaving at once. Kiss, Mr. Morgan.’

‘Kiss?’ said Mo Morgan.

‘
Kisss
,’ said my mother. ‘You never been on an assertiveness course? Keep it short, specific and simple. Use “I” language. Make your offer in an attractive and affordable form. Come with us and I’ll find you a room at the Sahara.’

‘Doris,’ Mo Morgan said. ‘You’re talking bullshit again. Come up and see Johnson. Whatever he’s going to do, it isn’t blow up the hotel. Or not tonight.’

‘Tomorrow?’ my mother said.

‘He can blow it up if he wants to, tomorrow,’ said Mo Morgan calmly. We’ll all be away at the meeting. There’s the lift.’

He called her Doris. It made me nervous. They were sparring with one another as if I wasn’t there. We got my mother and himself and me into the lift and Morgan rolled a cigarette for her, as she couldn’t get her arms up in the crush. Then we got her out, coughing, and he unlocked his bedroom door and ushered us in. ‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘to the Drying-out Clinic.’

I was surprised by the size of his room, which must have been the best in the whole crummy hotel, and actually overlooked the Place Jemaa-el-Fna. Half one wall was occupied by his skiing and climbing gear. Strewn over the rest was a collection of socks and sneakers and T-shirts with obscene writing all over them. On a table by the wall was an assortment of bottles. In a corner, filled with peaceful breathing, was a studio couch occupied by a neat cigar-mould of blankets. Exuding smoke, my mother went over and looked at it. I looked at Morgan.