Stewart, Angus (33 page)

'Okay,' he said, disarmed. Brown, he noticed, was successfully looking more severe now.

'But if you're in trouble we'll try and help,' Caroline said. She'd adopted an attitude of consciously patient judgement, with arms loosely folded. Heavily she drew upon the cigarette, as though the insult to her marital pledge were still affecting her.

Jay looked at her long and steadily. 'It's Achmed,' he said. 'I've reason to suspect he's been press-ganged into some sort of child convict platoon the Moroccans are using to clear minefields in the desert war. I'm travelling south with Lom. Incidentally, he knows nothing of this yet. And I think he's seriously ill. He's being grandly chauffeured by an army captain . . .'

'The jeep outside?' Brown interrupted.

'That's right. And it's only my guess, but I reckon Lom's bound for the war. He's got all his equipment. Probably it's some photographic assignment he's undertaken for the army. I think I'm going to tackle the captain direct. He seems a
nice bloke—though there's something odd about him. I barged in here because of a casual remark Simon made the other night to the effect that three times in gaol was one
too many for Achmed. And . . . and your business being what it is—or isn't'—he bowed lightly to Caroline-I thought he might know something more.—So that's my story,' Jay finished, feeling rather deflated.

'I honestly know no more,' Brown said, as if determined to come clean before Caroline spoke for him. 'But I had heard the story about the mines, yes. Where the boy will be . . . that I don't know.'

'I'm worried about Harold,' Caroline said.

'About
Harold
?'
Jay cried. 'But,
Achmed
! . . . 'Why, you stayed with his family . . .'

'I'm a nurse,' Caroline said. 'I mean simply my first duty is to a sick man. I think I should be with him. Of course we're as concerned about Achmed as you are. What seems the matter with Harold?'

'A wild, lay guess,' Jay said heavily, 'would be leukaemia. You'd probably call it terminal. He bleeds suddenly for no reason. Not that he seems to give a hoot.'

'You said you thought there was something odd about the officer?' Caroline asked

Jay looked up at her from where he had slumped on a pouf.

'It's only that I'm pretty sure I've seen him in scruffy civilian clothes touting in the Socco.'

'Native soldiers on leave can easily revert to that state,' Brown suggested.

'You've not seen this bloke,' Jay said disinterestedly.

Caroline made a circuit of the room, twisting the heavy ring slowly on her finger. She stopped before Jay, suddenly decided. 'Listen,' she said. 'Talk to this officer. If he knows anything, we'll join convoy and support your search. I think we
ought
to for Harold's sake, never mind Achmed's as well.' She exhaled a long fan of cigarette smoke, looking steadily at Jay. 'Simon and I are involved in government work. Only our assignment concerns a Black African state thousands of miles away, and doesn't take effect for several weeks yet. At the moment we're just getting to know each other in a quiet backwater.
Away
from domestic complications.' She looked at Brown. 'The rings, obviously, are because quite a lot of hotels are still run by Europeans—Catholics at that But we'll be only too happy to interrupt our lay-off if we can help Achmed or Harold.'

Once more Caroline drew deeply on the cigarette. Hers were hard eyes, Jay saw. They didn't release his for a moment. 'What you've heard makes you liable to prosecution under the Official Secrets act if you make any mention or note of it whatsoever. But you'll realise that.'

'I doubt it, if I've signed nothing,' Jay said evenly.

'Not in these circumstances.' Caroline was very sure of herself. 'If you don't wish to accept my word, you can discover its validity simply enough by a suspension of habeas corpus in the Consulate cell in Marrakesh.'

'She's not kidding,' Brown put in quietly.

'You've collected a formidable bride.' Jay said, getting up. 'Mum for Queen and country, them I'll not talk. Nice of you to help, if nothing else. I'll try and approach Captain Kerim now. If he's not too tight. Will check back within the hour. All right,'

'Yes,' Caroline said.

Rather awkwardly Jay paused at the door. Sorry I spilled the
origins of your rings, Simon,' he said. 'I mean, even though you both know it's only a game.'

  *  *  *  *  *

'So
I
bought the rings, did I?' Brown said hollowly, when he'd closed the door behind Jay. 'I said we were a sloppy lot.'

'Which I won't stand for!' Caroline snapped. "How could you be so stupid as to let that damned little boy wave that passport around when Jay knew he was Spanish.'

'The rings,' Brown retaliated weakly. 'Were easily explained,' Caroline said.

Brown poured whisky into a tooth glass from a pocket flask. 'Are you a nurse?'

'No.' Caroline continued to regard him coldly.

'Jesus loves us!' Brown cried, walking round the room clutching his brow.

'We've a job to do,' was all Caroline said

'Why all that about Black Africa and no assignment for several weeks?'

'Jay Gadston is sentimental. Such people are unreliable,' Caroline said. 'You don't know which way he might incline if it came to any conflict of loyalty between us and this god-send of a Moroccan soldier.'

'In other words, you mean he's honest,' Brown said. He looked sideways at the girl who, minutes before, had nestled intimately, caressingly beside him.

'That's a distinction the job doesn't admit,' Caroline came back. 'And it's one I'd have thought you could hardly personally afford. Incidentally, is Jay's relationship with Achmed the same as yours with that ruinous little Spaniard?'

'No,' Brown said wearily. 'Like the lady said, Jay is just sentimental—if you can describe anxiety about the possibility of one's friends being blown to pieces like that.' 'Light,' Caroline said.

  *  *  *  *  *

'It is true this thing. Is terrible. Bring much shame on Morocco.' With his feet on the bedroom table, Abdslem regarded Jay over a tumbler of wine as he finished his story. He still wore his peaked cap: tilted on the back of his head. In the bathroom someone was having a shower. 'So your friend Achmed has been sent to the war,' he repeated thoughtfully, emphasising each word with a tap of his finger-nail on
the tumbler.

'It's still only assumption—I'm not certain,' Jay said.

'Ah, yes. You guess.' The Arab thrust a pack of Casa Sports at Jay; then offered a match. 'But you guess right, I think.' Evidently he was not to be hurried. He gestured again towards a second tumbler, but Jay had already refused. 'Not drink more?'

'I've had my lot,' Jay said, for want of anything better to say. He sensed the Arab knew something; was protracting the moment of some revelation unnecessarily long.

'Already one over the eight, eh?' Abdslem looked pleased with this.

Jay smiled. 'Almost.'

At that moment a girl appeared from the bathroom. She held only a scanty towel to her body. Had Jay not been tensely preoccupied with his petition, her reaction upon seeing him must have seemed exceedingly funny. She started, and was for a second undecided what to do with the insubstantial piece of towelling: then she raised it to cover her mouth and nose, leaving the lower part of her body quite naked. Instinctively, Jay found himself comparing her unfavourably with Naima: she was nothing.

Abdslem called something roughly careless to her over his shoulder, and the girl got meekly into the bed and pulled the sheet right over her head. 'She doesn't understand what we say,' he explained unnecessarily to Jay. Not for a moment had his thoughts become deflected from whatever was occupying them. 'But a nurse, you say,' he went on. 'A nurse and a man called Brown. Is name like Smith, no?' He continued to look thoughtfully at Jay.

'It's quite a common name, yes,' Jay agreed.

'And he is your friend. Is your good friend?'

'I know him pretty well.' Jay inclined towards impatience now.

'You think Mr. Lom needs this girl to look after him?'

'He's certainly ill,' Jay said. 'You saw for yourself on the road. Who knows what may happen tomorrow? But there's more to it than that. Lom came over here to make a film. This girl worked for him. They know each other well, and I think she's worried.'

Abdslem now got up and walked over to the window. Ignored still, the girl huddled motionless beneath the sheet. Unholstering his automatic, the Arab snapped the clip out of the butt and weighed it on his palm as though it were the problem he had to consider. Jay was sure now that he was a man addicted to dramatic effect. Probably he was also someone for whom bravado was not without attraction. If he were not, there was no real reason why he should entertain the possibility of escorting a bevy of tourists into a war zone, or somewhere very near it. Achmed was a different question. It had been genuine compassion the officer had displayed when Jay voiced his fears; while he had admitted at once to there being justification for them. Yet about Abdslem, who was looking at him again so steadily now, he knew there also to be something calculating, and probably quite ruthless. Not for the first time Jay found himself remembering that these were no softly evolved people. Once roused out of
mektoub
,
an ideal easily became paramount with them, and to be remorselessly pursued, like a holy war. Indeed it was this quality Jay had sought consciously to exploit when describing Achmed's plight.

Abdslem flicked the magazine back with his thumb as though shooting a marble. 'They can come,' he said. 'But perhaps not after tomorrow. That depends. I must have papers. Then perhaps Mr. Lom is better. Or perhaps,' he smiled, 'I don't like this girl.'

'And Achmed? What can I do to find him?'

'Ah, yes!' Abdslem's smile grew steadily broader. 'You worry very much about him!'

'I certainly do.' Jay was beginning to resent being so played with.

'So!' Abdslem slapped the gun back into its holster. 'I give you this promise. Mind, it is only one. Tomorrow, perhaps at five o'clock, I give the boy back to you. He is safe.'

'Just like that?' Jay cried

'Why not?' There was an element of swagger to Abdslem now. 'Is simple. I know the fort where these boys are. If he is one of them, I release him.'

'Well, thank God!—or Allah.' Jay sank back into his chair.

'Is same person, I believe, or so they say.'

'Why, yes—I suppose so.' Jay collected himself. 'And thank you!'

'Don't thank me. Do you think I like to see Moroccan children put in danger?'

'No, of course I don't think that,' Jay said awkwardly.

'Then tell your friends we leave at five in the morning.'

'At five, okay,' Jay said. '
B's1ama.'

As he left, the girl in the bed had still not moved or reappeared. Abdslem was settling thoughtfully to more wine.

  *  *  *  *  *

Caroline came to the door.

'All fixed,' Jay said. 'He even seems to think he knows where Fus is—and can simply have him released!'

'Fus?' Caroline smiled. 'Is that what you call him—"a magical charm"?'

'Why, yes!' Jay laughed. I'd forgotten you spoke Arabic. He wants to be off by five.'

Caroline nodded. 'We'll be ready.'

  *  *  *  *  *

Simon Brown was ready long before five. Restless, resentful, he spent the night searching after the elusive ghost of Manolo summoning it into imaginary embrace, because it alone held the secret that could calm his mind, and somehow cleanse him.

Around half past four he dressed and went downstairs. His throat was parched, for lack probably of the quantities of milk he normally drank at night. In the stair-well was an alcove full of brooms. The first grey light seeped into the bar where the chairs were piled on the tables. Stooped over, while standing, a woman was scrubbing the tiles with a rhythmic, pendulum motion. Behind her a boy stood ineffectually with, a bucket. Brown watched
for a moment.

'Could you get me a beer?'
Brown called to the boy in French.

He came round behind the bar, having only understood 'une
bière
'.

'Isn't it kept in here?' Brown asked, gesturing towards the dark alcove with the mops and brooms

The boy didn't understand.

'
Agi
!' Brown said desperately.

The boy came and peered nonplussed into the cupboard. Then a grin of enlightenment split his face.

Over the top of the bar, a moment longer, Simon Brown could see the woman's back as it swayed patiently from side to side.

  *  *  *  *  *

Jay was to plunge easily into sleep. If the officer were as good as his word, he could be back with Naima within forty-eight hours. This time he'd see to it that Achmed was firmly locked behind one of the walled gardens Brown had prescribed. Then he might take Naima out of the city for the summer. To Anzila, perhaps . . . Tetouan. They could rent a native house for a few shillings a week. And he'd insist Brown pay him quite exorbitant keep for the baby. The old woman too. Naima should have a servant . . .

Jay reached tentatively for one of those toggle-switches that are identical with bell-pushes. In Kasbah Tadla it was unlikely to be a bell. It wasn't; and the room snicked into darkness.

  *  *  *  *  *

There was a deep, wild tang to the honey. At first he thought of it as having colours. The melting, wax, polygonal boxes were so pale a yellow. Within each, dark, translucent as caramel, the varnished deposits of honey were old, old brown. But then he was aware of further related things. The taste was that colour; the taste and colour, both, were alike indigenous, and the transmission of their sensation to the live buds of his tongue was as absorbing, physical to his being, as the shock of drums at Sidi Ali. Of course the honey was
visible only through taste. The
majoun
had the consistency of marzipan, and Harold Lom dug cautiously into the jar with a penknife.