The Levant Trilogy (61 page)

'In Cairo.'

'Too busy to come with you, I suppose.' Angela
gave Lister another look and realizing that her suspicions were absurd,
laughed: 'Well, it's lovely to have you here. Let's all have a drink after
supper. See you in the Winter Garden.'

When she had left them, Lister said: 'I don't
think your friend liked me.'

'It was just that she thought at first I'd gone
off with you.'

Lister shook with wheezy laughter: 'Would it
were true! Dear me, dear me! Would it were true!'

Harriet laughed too: 'She went off with Castlebar.
It's funny how often people disapprove of others doing what they have done
themselves.'

Angela and Castlebar were seated at a small
table in an alcove of the dining-room that Angela, with her habit of lavish
tipping, had probably kept reserved for them. Glancing across at their enclosed
intimacy, Harriet could not suppose that Angela would want her to be with them
for very long. She had found friends but that did not solve anything. She might
borrow from Angela, she might even borrow from Lister, but borrowing merely put
off the day when she must face up to her situation. She glanced again towards
the lovers and caught Castlebar's eye. As though he understood her dilemma, he
smiled and raised his hand reassuringly. She had never understood his attraction
for Angela but now, warmed by his greeting, she felt him to be an old friend in
a strange, unhelpful world.

'What are we going to drink?' Lister offered her
the wine list.

'Not for me.'

'Oh, come on,' Lister rallied her: 'must have a
glass,' and added as though admitting to a curious virtue, 'I always have wine
with my meals.' He ordered a bottle of Cyprus red and watching the cork being
drawn, he flushed with impatience and pushed his glass forward.

Harriet remembered his eagerness for food and
drink. Based in Jerusalem, he would come to Cairo whenever he could to treat
himself to what he called 'the fleshpots'. He sometimes took Harriet out for a
meal, feeling that a companion gave him licence to indulge himself.

His glass filled, he lifted it quickly and
drank, holding the wine in his mouth and sluicing it round and round his teeth,
then as he swallowed it, giving a long drawn 'Ah-h-h.' Before the meal was
over, Lister had drunk the whole bottle.

As Angela and Castlebar left the room, Angela
called across: 'See you in the Winter Garden.'

'You think they want me?' Lister asked with
tremulous lips and bulging wet blue eyes.

'Of course. You saw she meant both of us.'

The Winter Garden, that stretched out from the
main building, was a large, glass gazebo that gave a view of the lights of
Beirut and the dark glimmer of the distant sea. Lister followed Harriet with
timorous expectancy as though fearing Angela would order him away.

Angela and Castlebar were seated in a corner
behind a screen of blue plumbago flowers. Again Harriet felt they had made this
seclusion their own, but Castlebar rose eagerly to welcome her and went to find
extra chairs. During his absence from Cairo, it seemed he had taken on the
function of host while Angela, who paid the bills, kept in the background.
Their nightly bottle of whisky was on the table. Angela pushed it towards
Lister who, after conventional demur, filled his glass and lifting it towards
her, said: 'Here's seeing you, mem.'

Angela watched him with critical attention as he
put down the whisky and refilled his glass. She did not look at Harriet but
Castlebar, devoting himself to an old friend, insisted that evening she must
have something more festive than her usual glass of white wine: 'How about a
Pimm's? They do it very nicely here.'

When the Pimm's arrived, expertly dressed with
fruit and borage, he handed it to her with a conniving smile and she felt he
would not be at all displeased if she remained to share Angela's liberality.
She was sure they had discussed the oddity of her presence here when she was
supposed to be on the
Queen of Sparta.
And
why was she short of money when she could send to her husband for help? She
realized that if she stayed there, she would have a lot of explaining to do.

Angela, leaning her delicate, pretty head back
among the flowers, gave Harriet a quizzical smile then, perhaps remembering
their past friendship, suddenly leant forward and squeezed Harriet's hand:
'Dear Harriet, I thought I would never see you again.'

Angela had not changed in appearance since she
left Cairo but Castlebar was not quite the Castlebar of the Anglo-Egyptian
Union. He not only had more confidence and more to say for himself but he had
lost the seedy look of the alcoholic for whom any money not spent on drink was
money wasted. He was wearing an expensively tailored suit and silk shirt. Rich
living had enhanced his looks but he still chain-smoked, placing the pack open
in front of him with a cigarette pulled out ready to succeed the one he held in
his hand. He still hung over the table, his thick, pale eyelids covering his
eyes, his full, mauvish under-lip hanging slightly with one yellow eye-tooth
tending to slip into view. Not really very different from the Castlebar of the
Anglo-Egyptian Union.

Harriet asked where they had been since leaving
Cairo. 'W-w-we went to Cyprus,' Castlebar said. 'S-s-stayed in Kyrenia.'

'At the Dome?' asked Lister: 'Great hotel the
Dome. Got more public rooms, and
bigger
public
rooms, than anywhere else in the Eastern Med. And the teas,' Lister's eyes
watered at the thought of them, 'real old English teas - scones, jam, cream,
plum-cake! Oh, my goodness!'

'Yes, we stayed at me Dome. But Cyprus is a
small place and we got b-b-bored. We took the boat back to Haifa and Angie
bought a second-hand car and drove us up here.'

Angela said: 'We thought we'd stay here a bit.'
She smiled at Harriet: 'It's quite a nice hotel, isn't it?' and Harriet
wondered what she would have thought of the Baalbek café.

Offered the bottle again, Lister said: 'Can't
drink all your booze,' but, pressed, took a larger glass than before and,
sipping, sighed: 'Back to the grindstone tomorrow. Only had four days' leave
but managed to see a few things. Ever been to the Dog River?'

Angela, beginning to relent towards him, asked:
'What is the Dog River?'

'Oh, quite fantastic. There's this great
headland where all the conquerors since Nebuchadnezzar have carved
inscriptions. I wanted to see the earliest, the Babylonian one, but it's all
overgrown with bramble. Silly people these Lebanese, no sense of history.
I'd've climbed up and cleared it but couldn't get across the river. I've been
told that at the river mouth there's a dog -not a real dog, of course - that
used to howl so loudly at the sight of an enemy, it could be heard in Cyprus.'

Castlebar lifted his eyelids with interest:
'W-w-what was it? Some sort of siren?'

'Don't know. Drove down and looked for it but
couldn't see hide or hair.' In an absent-minded way, Lister refilled his glass
again and fell silent. He was beginning to droop and had to cling to his stick
to keep himself from falling. He sighed and lifted the bottle but finding it
empty, he put it down and his infantile nose and fat cheeks fell together with
disappointment: 'Walked a long way
...
foot very bad
...
no dog anywhere.
Never been able to find anything, really. Always deprived, always ill-treated.
My nurse - what d'you think she used to do? She used to pull down m'knickers
and beat m'bum with a hairbrush. Bristle side. Used to pull down little
knickers and beat little bum. Poor little bum! What a thing to do to a child!'
He drew in a long breath and let it out painfully: 'Never got over it. Never.
Never shall.'

He sniffed and as he gave a sob, Angela sat up
briskly and looking from Castlebar to Harriet, said: 'Time for bed.'

Making their excuses and goodnights, the three
left Lister to brood on his wrongs and went out to the hall, where Angela
asked: 'How did you come to pick that one up? Or, rather, how did Guy pick him
up? I take it, it was Guy.'

'Of course. And how does Guy come to pick anyone
up?'

'Well, Major Lister's going tomorrow, thank
goodness, but Harriet you must stay on. I can't let you go so soon. We haven't
had a chance to talk yet.'

'Angela dear, I've less than five pounds in the
world.'

Angela went upstairs. Putting a hand out to stop
the argument, she said: 'I'll settle your bill and you pay me back in Cairo,'
then passed from view.

Harriet turned to Castlebar: 'You know, Bill, I
can't afford to stay here.'

Castlebar grinned: 'Leave it to Angie. You're
silly to worry, she loves to do the honours.' He followed Angela upstairs.

He did not worry himself. His attitude towards
Angela's money had been determined early on when his friend Jake Jack-man told
him: 'If Angela takes us to places we can't afford, there's nothing for it.
We'll have to let her pay.'

For Harriet, too, there was nothing for it. She
had to borrow or starve. She could only hope that one day she would be able to
repay what she owed.

When she went down to breakfast next morning,
she found that Lister had already gone. There was no sign of Angela and
Castlebar so, having eaten alone, she walked round the hotel garden that was
lush with semi-tropical plants and early orange trees. The end, unfenced, fell
for several hundred feet sheer to the road into Beirut. She saw Beirut itself
stretched beneath her, a sharply-drawn maze of streets set with pink and cream
buildings, delicately coloured in the early sunlight. The streets, flashing
with traffic, converged towards the water-front where ships were gathered on
the glittering Mediterranean. On the southern side of the town, beside the
road, there was a wood of dark trees, each a stiff arrangement of branches with
wings of closely packed foliage, standing like crows in affected attitudes.
These, she realized, were the Cedars for which the hotel was named. And the
hotel, of course, was one of the most famous in the Middle East - and here she
was, living in idleness with no means of keeping herself. How long could it go
on? Angela had said 'pay me back in Cairo' and now that their relationship had
established itself, she and Castlebar would, sooner or later, return to Egypt.
Then what would become of Harriet? The future was too ominous to contemplate and,
turning her back on it, she went out to the road and walked between the
orchards.

Angela and Castlebar were down for luncheon.
Angela had asked for a larger table and, leaving their alcove, they seemed
content to have Harriet with them. If they had suffered headaches or hangover,
they had had time to recover and Angela began to consider the afternoon.

'Supposing we go and find this Dog River! What
do you think, Harriet?'

Harriet said she was ready for anything. After
luncheon, Angela said:

'Let's have our coffee in the Winter Garden.
You, Bill darling, you want to work on a poem, don't you?'

Castlebar said, 'Yes', and went upstairs, as no
doubt prearranged, and Angela took Harriet to the secluded spot behind the
plumbago plants.

'Now, Harriet, when you say you're near penury,
you're playing a little game with yourself, aren't you? I'm sure if you write
to your husband, he'll send you what you need?'

'I can't write to him, that's the trouble. I
can't ask him for anything.'

'Well, you can rely on me. I'll do all I can to
help - but I must know the truth. What are you doing here? You're obviously not
on holiday.. Have you left Guy?'

'I think you could ask, rather, has he left me.
Things happened that made me feel I'd be better elsewhere. I decided to go to
England but, instead, I came here.'

'What happened? What sort of things?'

'Small things that seemed important at the time.
You remember that brooch you gave me: the rose-diamond heart? Guy took it from
me and gave it to Edwina.'

'To Edwina?' Angela gave a shocked laugh but
added: 'If he did, surely it didn't mean anything?'

'It meant something to me.'

'I'm sorry. Oh, Harriet, I'm truly sorry. I wish
I'd never bought the wretched thing.'

'I loved it. But if it hadn't been that, it
would have been something else. I was ill and depressed. Guy's devotion to the
outside world was more than I could stand. I felt I was tied up to him yet I
was always alone. I sometimes think I would have done better to go on the
evacuation ship. In England I could have earned a living. I would have had a
life of my own.'

'But how did you get here from Suez? Not by
train, I'm sure.'

'I was given a lift in a lorry. I came on an
impulse, without stopping to ask myself how I was going to live when I got
here. I had fifty pounds with me but it didn't last long. I'm in a silly
predicament which I've brought on myself and I don't know what to do next.'

'Well, I won't abandon you, now that I've found
you. As for money, you needn't worry about that. We're moving around and if
you'd like to come with us, then come with us.'

'I'd like nothing better but I'd feel like an
intruder. You and Bill are soon going to get tired of having me trailing after
you.'