Jasmine Nights (16 page)

When Arleta woke she switched off the fan and got out of bed wearing nothing but silk pyjama bottoms and a frothy bra – she’d thrown all her khaki underwear in the dustbin on their first night in Cairo, crooning, ‘Nice knowing you.’

‘Can I bags first bath?’ Arleta said yawning. ‘I must wash my hair.’

‘Only a ten-turner,’ warned Saba.

The turns referred to the egg timer that Janine had brought on tour with her to stop people hogging the bath. They were absolutely essential, she’d said.

Inside the bathroom, there was a cracked bowl underneath the sink with Janine’s leotards soaking in it and the bottle of shampoo that she marked with a pencil like an old brigadier hoarding sherry. Saba heard Arleta turn on the taps from which the rust-coloured water trickled out at an agonisingly slow pace, and while she splashed and groaned, Saba moved restlessly around the room thinking about her strange conversation with Mr Cleeve, a conversation which had thrilled and frightened her.

Her borrowed dress was hanging in front of the wardrobe like a new life waiting to begin; the shadows were lengthening in the street outside, and her stomach was in knots. For that moment everything in her existence felt unstable.

To calm herself she ran through possible songs she might sing for Mr Ozan, moving her hips and humming the first bars of ‘Mazi’, one of her father’s favourites. It was ages since she’d sung a song in Turkish and every time she sang it she felt a wave of sorrow and rage sweep over her. Not a word yet from her father, how mean of him, and what a loss for both of them who had once been so close. Singing the next verse for him straight from the heart, it seemed to her that the song had taken her over and was singing her – a strange effect she’d noticed before, particularly when she sang in Turkish. When it was over, she dashed her tears away. Damn you, Baba. You were the one who told me I could sing. Why should I stop?

When it was her turn to get in the bath, her mood flipped again and Dom stole into her mind. Seeing him with that other girl in Cavours had hurt her pride but she still thought about him. She wanted him to be here tonight, to see her in this wonderful dress, to take account of how much she had already changed and what a prize he had missed out on. Soaping her armpits, she ran a film of it in her mind. Dom on a terrace in a dinner jacket, rumpled hair, palm trees behind him, she walking towards him in the sunset, a woman now in her Schiaparelli dress, cigarettes and pearl holder, her smile slightly mysterious now because of the important war work.

‘Saba!’ Janine’s tight voice through the keyhole. ‘Could you please stop making that horrible noise, and also, you’ve had at least twenty turns in the bath,’ followed by Arleta’s bellow: ‘Come in, boat number four – taxi in half an hour.’

Later, stepping into the street, even Janine was forced to admit it was the most perfect night for a party. The evening air was soft and warm, and as they drove past the bronze lions on the Khedive Ibrahim Bridge, the lights of the river barges made red and gold reflections on the surface of the Nile. In the distance against a lurid horizon, the sails of the feluccas fluttered like large moths.

A jeep crammed with hooting and whistling GIs drove by as they got into the taxi. They made obscene gestures at the girls. One man clawed at his mouth like a starving man.

‘I absolutely hate that,’ said Janine, regal in pale green and clasping her evening bag tight. ‘It’s so unnecessary.’

Now they passed through Cairo streets loud with rackety music, past a stretch of water with what appeared to be a dead donkey floating on top of it. A crowd of men in white djellabas were holding lanterns over it, the ropes to get it out.

‘Oh golly!’ Janine held her nose and winced. ‘What a d
readful
pong.’

‘Nah, lovely,’ Arleta joked. ‘It’s Eau de Nile.’

Saba laughed out loud. This morning she’d felt so distraught, so wrong about everything; tonight the randomness of driving through Cairo’s corkscrewed streets in a borrowed evening dress felt marvellous.

Clear of the city a brand-new life sped past her window – some large and luxurious houses surrounded by trees, an old man sitting by the road having a quiet smoke by a fire; a skinny horse waiting patiently to be unloaded, a group of street children jumping and laughing. Samir, whose wife cleaned their rooms in the mornings, had already told them how dreadful this year’s crops had been, a disaster, great hardship for the villagers, and yet there was a feeling of almost enviable peace and ordinariness about these scenes. Of quiet worlds that would continue stubbornly despite the Desert War.

It took about forty minutes to get to Giza and the hotel. In a long drive lit with flaming torches Arleta turned and said with some ceremony:

‘Girls, I want you to pay attention to me. Tonight is a blue-moon night – and you’re to enjoy every minute of it.’

Janine, who had complained of car sickness on the way out, looked puzzled, but Saba understood and approved. Blue-moon nights were Arleta-speak for the choicest gigs you could ever possibly get, the magical nights that might only happen once or twice in a lifetime. It was important to recognise them, bask in them, and use them as nourishment for when you were back in some crummy digs in an English seaside town doing panto.

When the car set them down in front of a glowing building, a uniformed porter wearing a huge ornamental sword stepped forward and helped them out.

In front of her Saba saw the three ancient Pyramids of Giza, jutting out into a night sky that glittered with a thousand million stars. She was stunned by their beauty – in her mind pyramids belonged with unicorns and mermaids in some other mystical world; they were not the backdrops for a party.

Even Janine was impressed. ‘Golly,’ she said, her highest accolade. ‘This is actually quite pretty.’

The hotel itself stood on the crest of a small hill against a cobalt-blue sky. Dozens of lanterns shifting in a slight breeze made the building seem to float against the sky like a skittish little pleasure craft, and lavish planting of jasmine bushes on the terraces made the air piercingly sweet.

‘Ready, girls?’ Arleta took both their arms. ‘Down we go.’

Arleta had a fabulous red-carpet walk, both slouchy and stately, which she deployed to maximum effect on these occasions and which she and Saba sometimes practised for fun in their PJs in their digs. You blanked your eyes, lengthened your neck, stuck your hips out, and swung your bottom negligently as if you didn’t give much of a damn about anything.

They were having fun with it now as they walked down the short flight of steps that led to the party. A dramatic pause on the first terrace, then the band struck up a jazzy tune, and a group of young men in dinner jackets froze at the sight of them like Pompeii statues. Captain Furness, wearing a regimental bum-freezer dinner jacket that showed a large and surprisingly girlish bottom for a military man, stepped out of the crowd, eager to claim them.

‘Before you get lost,’ he put a moist hand on Saba’s arm, ‘there are quite a few people I’d like you to meet,’ and then, as if remembering Mr Manners, ‘Girls, well done, you look jolly nice.’

Down to the lower terrace now where red-faced servants were adding sprigs of rosemary to an open fire on which two whole skinned lambs were roasting. On a long table beside the fire, a feast was laid out: wobbling terrines, jewel-coloured salads, a large turkey, a mountain of salmon and prawns. Saba, who had hardly eaten since breakfast, felt her mouth fill with saliva, and then the usual pang of guilt. So much food here, and so little at home, it did feel wicked sometimes.

‘Look, look, look!’ Arleta’s hair had turned to liquid gold in the firelight. She was as excited as a child. She led Saba down another flight of steps to where a swimming pool framed by masses of tiny candles shimmered and shifted like a vast sapphire.

Saba began to search the roaring faces for the famous Mr Ozan. She’d imagined him to be old and fat and rich and Middle Eastern-looking, but saw no one who matched that description. The faces on the terrace were mainly pale and European.

‘Girls, round me.’ Furness, who seemed slightly plastered, wanted to introduce them to everyone.

‘Jolly nice to have some new blood,’ one of the English wives bellowed, an anxious red face gleaming in the lamplight. ‘Lots of us have gone, you see.’

They were handed from group to group, smiled at, examined closely and asked more or less the same questions: had they come by sea or air? Were they singers or dancers? Gosh, what fun, how marvellous! What discipline! So necessary, one added, to have treats for the men. Now, did they play any instruments? Yes, Arleta extemporised gaily, she played the xylophone; her friend Saba, she’d given her a pinch here, was a dab hand at the Welsh harp. Some admired their frocks and asked for news of home. A couple said they felt guilty about rationing, but what could one do, no point in starving oneself. Another said that when she’d stepped off the ship in Durban with her banker husband a year or so ago, she’d been bowled over by two things: the stunning brightness of the light, and the food, but now she absolutely longed for grey skies, for rain, for home. It frightened her being separated from her children. Particularly at a time like this.

‘Now, now, now!’ her husband interrupted. ‘You know the rules. No war talk on a night like this.’ He bared his teeth at the girls. ‘Enjoy it while the going’s good, what?’

‘You’ll probably leave too soon,’ the woman muttered before she was led away. Most of the wives and families of military personnel, had already gone to South Africa or Sudan, somewhere safer than here. Her sensible Home Counties face sweated in the flickering light. She pointed out the young, recently widowed wife of a naval officer who’d somehow slipped through the net and not been evacuated. Awfully brave. The woman was listening, polite and attentive, to an older man who was leaning towards her telling a story. She had a small glass of sherry in her hand.

The moon rose higher, lighting the tips of the Pyramids, more stars came out, dazzling the dark velvet of the sky. The girls were handed around and around like delicacies, until eventually the faces on the terrace grew indistinct, and the older officers said, Gosh! Was that really the time? and pressed sticky hot hands into theirs and said how lovely it had been to meet them, and they would be sure to come and see them in concert. But still no sign of Mr Ozan, and no sign of Mr Cleeve either. Saba didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

When the old people had gone, the young men loosened their bow ties and took off their dinner jackets. A band started to play some sleepy jazz on a small dance floor fringed with palm trees near the swimming pool.

But no Mr Ozan. To fill in time, Saba danced with a gaunt young Scottish doctor, who apologised for stepping on her toes. He said he’d been out near Tripoli, operating for six days straight. ‘It’s pretty hairy out there, sorry I’m such a lousy dancer.’ She was rescued by a group of rowdy Desert Air Force pilots who sank to their knees in front of her and declared undying love.

She was tempted to ask if they knew Dominic but felt she couldn’t face being teased about him, or explain a relationship that basically didn’t exist, and yet – what an idiot – she’d pictured him earlier on the terrace waiting for her, thinking how lovely she looked in her dress.

She was laughing in a hollow way at herself when suddenly she was aware of a dip in the laughter and the conversation; the band’s tune abruptly ending. The partygoers were turned towards a portly man in a startling burgundy-coloured dinner jacket, making his stately way down the steps. He was patting arms, he was smiling graciously, and now a small wave at the band that had struck up ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. As he walked towards the dance floor, Arleta appeared at Saba’s side, a gold mermaid in the moonlight.

‘One second, darling.’ She smiled charmingly at the young doctor waiting for another dance. She drew Saba aside.

‘Zafer Ozan,’ she whispered, her eyes mocking and mirthful, ‘the one I told you about. The stinking-rich one.’

Ozan had spotted them; he was looking at them both from across the dance floor.

‘Don’t you think,’ Arleta blew him a kiss, ‘he’s rather attractive in a Bunter sort of a way?’ She waved him over.

Saba stared at Ozan and looked away. She saw his teeth flash as he shook the hand of another guest. ‘Everyone loves him,’ Arleta said, her blonde hair tickling Saba’s ear. She was wiggling her fingers at him discreetly like a shy little girl.

‘You’re a shocking flirt,’ said Saba.

‘I know,’ said Arleta happily. ‘And I can assure you he doesn’t mind.’

As he walked towards them, Arleta said quickly, ‘Darling, as a treat for him, I’m going to ask the band to play “Night and Day”. Would you sing it? It’s his signature tune.’

‘Why don’t you sing it?’ Saba was thoroughly confused now: had Cleeve arranged for Arleta to sing too, or was this pure coincidence?

‘Come off it, darling. I’m the dancer; you’re the one with the voice. Even bloody old Janine says that.’

‘She does?’ Saba was amazed. ‘She never told me.’

‘Well of course she hasn’t, silly – she’s jelly bag. I am too, but I’m better at hiding it.’ She play-pinched Saba on the arm. ‘Hop up now before he meets you.’

Saba got on to the small stage. The little band with its piano and tenor saxophone and double bass apparently knew she was coming. They slipped into the music and when the pianist gave her a wink she joined them, nervous at first because of the strangeness of all this and then forgetting because in the end a song was a song and beyond things. She blotted them all out and closed her eyes and sang into the jasmine-scented night. Happiness flowed like golden honey through her veins. This was what she loved; what she was good at.

There was a roar of approval when the song was over. Ozan came to the edge of the stage, stood in front of her and just looked at her. His eyes dark, almost bruised-looking, the flames from the fire reflected in them.

‘Do you know other songs?’ he said. ‘Sing one for me, please?’

And knowing this might be her only chance, she launched into a Turkish song, ‘Fikrimin Ince Gülü’, a song her father had once sung and translated for her.
You are always in my heart like a delicate rose; you are in my heart like a happy nightingale
. The audience looked puzzled, but she saw Mr Ozan’s eyes light up, and how the waiters bustling around him glanced at her in surprise. Next – oh how she was enjoying this suddenly, the night, the challenge of it – the band joined her in a verse of ‘Ozkorini’, a famous Arabic song that Umm Kulthum, the greatest Arabic singer of all, sang.
Ozkorini
, her father had once explained, meant think of me. Remember me. The waiters surged towards the stage thrilled and clapping, as Saba sang an extract from a song they recognised.