Jasmine Nights (17 page)
Saba felt nervous at first stepping in the footsteps of this goddess, but she gave the sobbing lyrics their full worth, and when she’d finished, cries of ‘Allah!’ and ‘
Ya Hayya!
’ came out of the darkness, and her eyes filled with tears. For that moment her father, her hateful, lovable father, was powerfully with her, and yet he would have hated this.
Mr Ozan said nothing; he looked at her and shook his head.
‘It’s too noisy to talk here,’ he said, gesturing towards the crowd. ‘Tomorrow,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The band clapped him as he walked away, as if he was the true star of the evening, and then, almost immediately, Captain Furness, who must have been lurking in the undergrowth, jumped on to the stage.
‘That was interesting. I didn’t expect that,’ he said into Saba’s ear. Although his lips were smiling, his hand on her arm was tourniquet tight. He said he’d taken the liberty of ordering a taxi for them. He advised Arleta in his barking voice to put her shoes back on; there were scorpions that sometimes hid in the cracks of the pavements. Janine said that was quite right, a friend of hers had ended up in hospital with a very nasty bite. There was still no sign of Cleeve.
By the time they got home, the stars were fading and the pale streaks of dawn breaking over the Nile, an interlude of peace before the insane muddle of daylight in Cairo began.
‘Isn’t this so often the best time of a party?’ Arleta stretched out her legs. ‘When you take the wampum off and put on your jammys, and stop showing off.’
It was four in the morning, and the air was like warm milk. Janine, after doing her fifty splashes, went straight to bed; Arleta and Saba were sitting on their balcony in their pyjamas under a cotton sheet.
Down in the alleyway, a donkey croaked; the man who sold fly whisks slept beside it on a raffia mat with a few rags over him.
When Arleta got up to make tea, Saba stayed where she was, her feet still throbbing from the dancing, the music pounding in her veins like a strong drug. She felt the relief a high diver might feel, or a mountain climber, when the scaring thing was done, but ‘Night and Day’ had sounded good, and she hadn’t made a complete fool of herself with ‘Ozkorini’, even though she’d suddenly felt shockingly nervous before singing it.
‘Bliss.’ Arleta put a cup of tea and a biscuit in Saba’s hand. ‘Don’t they call this
l’heure bleue
?’ She’d tied her hair back in an old scarf and changed into a silk kimono. ‘The time when it’s not quite light and not quite dark,’ she closed her eyes, ‘when most people die or fall in love.
‘Well you were a big success tonight,’ she said in the same sleepy voice. ‘The belle of the ball, or should I say the belly dancer of the balley. Ozan was very taken.’
‘Where did you meet him?’ Saba said. The moment the question was out of her mouth, she felt awkward; she didn’t want to start spying on Arleta, but she was curious.
Arleta yawned. ‘On my first tour with the Merrybelles; the rules were more relaxed so we were allowed to sing for a couple of nights at his nightclub in Alexandria, the Cheval D’Or. It was fun, and I thought he was very attractive and . . .’ She lit a cigarette and flicked the match away. ‘As I said, we were lovers for a while, but not for long. He’d just got married, I think for the third time.’
Her cigarette hadn’t lit properly, she groped around for another light, and although Saba was shocked, she couldn’t help thinking that Arleta was the least hypocritical woman she’d ever met. She liked, sex, she liked men, none of that mealy-mouthed talk about being led on, or letting the stars get in her eyes, no talk of being duped or dumped or feeling guilty. What a revelation!
‘I knew it wouldn’t last,’ Arleta ruminated through a plume of smoke. ‘But it was great fun. I’d just come out of an affair with a real Frigidaire Englishman and it was just what I needed. Also, let’s be frank – he’s the biggest booker of talent in the Middle East and I want to go on working when the war’s over. He’s a good contact for you, Saba.’ Arleta had her professional voice on now. ‘He loves English girls and he was very taken with all that headless horror stuff you did.’ Her name for Eastern music.
‘But tell me something, darling.’ Arleta leapt in quickly. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you ever been really in love?’ She squeezed Saba’s hand briefly. ‘Don’t look so shocked – it’s usually the first thing women want to know about each other.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘If you’re, um,
not sure
, you definitely haven’t been.’
‘Ah, so, trick question.’
‘Oh get on with it!’ Arleta’s voice came like a lazy slap across the night. ‘Ugh! This tea is vile,’ she said. ‘That ghastly buffalo milk always tastes so funny. There’s half a bottle of champers in the fridge, Willie put it there – it’s a bit flat but better than tea. Come on, and don’t be cross – I want to know everything about you. I bet you’ve had dozens of boyfriends.’ A barefoot Arleta padded back with two glasses and a bottle in her hand. ‘You’re so pretty.’
‘I was engaged, but only for a bit,’ Saba explained. ‘And that was because my dad approved of him, and thought I should marry him. His name was Paul Llewellyn. He was in the class above me at school. He was sweet and kind. He wrote poems for me, said we would marry one day. I don’t know why I’m talking about him in the past tense. He’s still alive, he’s in the army, he wants to be a schoolteacher when the war’s over. All his family are schoolteachers. He hated me being a singer.’ She dipped her head, remembering the terrible row. ‘He liked the eisteddfods and the singing competitions, but when he saw me performing in front of men, well he went bloody mad. My father hates it too.’
She seemed to be blurting things out suddenly, perhaps the champagne or the late hour.
Arleta tutted and took another sip. ‘Not bad is it, there are still a few bubbles left – carry on.’
‘Well, I was doing this show in a factory near Bristol. My first big show really. Lots of men there, but perfectly respectable. I went on stage and sang “Where or When” and a few of the men did, you know, the wolf whistles and whatever. But it was
so
exciting, Arleta, my first show, and a dressing room even, well just a little bit curtained off. Paul wanted to come. He sent me flowers, he tried to be happy for me, he’d even hired a car, but when we were driving home, he went absolutely silent, and when I asked him what was the matter, he suddenly shouted,’ Saba put down her cup and did his voice, ‘ “
You
, you’re the matter – you made a real spectacle of yourself tonight.” He said he felt like a twerp sitting there on his own with nothing to do.’
‘Oh Lordy, what a fibber he sounds. The truth was, he couldn’t bear it, nor could your father.’
‘Bear what?’
‘You being the centre of attention. Normal male behaviour in my experience. So then what?’
‘It’s different with my father, Arl, it goes so deep with him it hurts, but anyway, this Paul, when he said that, I knew in a flash it wouldn’t work. I can’t stop doing this.’ The pain seemed fresh for a moment. ‘I know it’s not what some men want, but I’ve got to do it. I told him to stop the car, and I got out.’ And she had. They’d been a mile or so from home, and she’d run back past the canal, down to the docks, sobbing her heart out. Her mother had been waiting at the lit door, dying to hear how it had all gone, and one of the worst things about it all was showing up like that all tear-stained and with the new dress Mum had spent hours on, splattered with mud. It was like murdering two dreams at once. Her mother had listened, frozen-faced, then sent her to bed and she’d lain there awake most of the night, her heart filled with a feeling of dreary darkness, a foreboding she couldn’t name.
‘The next morning, I posted his engagement ring back. Paul said I was being dramatic, but I knew it couldn’t work. My family haven’t forgiven me either. He was suitable and he was—’
‘Oh Christ!’ Arleta interrupted with some violence. ‘
Suitable
.’
Saba could still see his face all twisted and wet. She’d felt so bad and so bloody determined at the same time, but she wanted to stop her story now.
‘Are you a virgin?’ There was nothing prurient about Arleta’s question; it was a straightforward enquiry.
‘No.’
‘I think it’s very overrated,’ Arleta said, taking a swig of her champagne.
Saba silently agreed with her. She had lost her virginity in Paul’s bedroom in Cardiff. His parents were away for the weekend visiting relatives in Tonypandy. He’d turned down the sheets of his narrow boyhood bed and kept his pyjama bottoms on until the lights were out, and it had happened surrounded by his school pictures and hockey sticks, and afterwards she’d felt calmer and freer. It was something she’d worried about a great deal, and now she didn’t have to. In the middle of that night, safely back in her own bed, she’d woken feeling a little wicked (God knows what her father would have said) but mostly happy, as if a great weight had been lifted from her mind.
‘Unless of course,’ Arleta stared thoughtfully into her glass, ‘you get PWL.’
‘PWL?’
‘Pregnant without leave. It happened to a girl in the Merrybelles on my last tour, and she was sent back home immediately with no pay. The hypocrisy was appalling, the brass hats swooning away like virgins themselves when half the men here have the clap.’
‘What about you?’ Saba said. ‘Are you in love?’
‘Oh, plenty of time for that later.’ Arleta’s voice was a little slurred.
‘No, play fair.’ Saba took a sip of champagne. ‘Off you go.’
‘Well . . .’ Arleta didn’t seem to know where to begin. ‘The answer is no,’ she said after a pause, ‘but there is someone – a submariner, Bill, in the navy. I have no idea at all where he is now. He bought me this.’ She jangled her charm bracelet. ‘He’s got no money.
‘I’m in a bit of a bind about it actually.’ Arleta had gone unusually still. ‘We got carried away on my last night in England, because he was terribly frightened about going away and getting killed, and now he thinks we’re going to get married. I’ve been a bit of a coward with this one . . . He’s very sweet, though,’ she added with a wan smile. ‘I’m no good at breaking things off . . . hopeless actually.’
‘So, not the mink buyer?’ The indiscreet question slipped out, but Arleta had surprised her. She’d imagined a string of rich admirers.
‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Saba heard the clink of her glass and another sip. ‘Another admirer altogether – he’s got pots of it. The thing about Bill is he made me laugh, or did, but so much has happened since then, I can hardly remember him.’ She stopped suddenly and laid her head on Saba’s shoulder.
‘Isn’t that awful? Awful but true.’ She sighed. ‘I’d better show you the love of my life.’ She went into their bedroom, and came back with a small, creased plastic folder that she thrust into Saba’s hand. Inside it was a polyphoto of a small boy with sleepy blue eyes and blond curls. He had Arleta’s curved humorous mouth and was roaring with laughter. ‘His name is George, he’s three, and as far as ENSA knows, he doesn’t exist.’
‘Arlie!’ Saba, shocked, took the photograph. ‘You must miss him horribly.’
‘I do, I do – can’t bear to think about him actually.’ Arleta took the photo and gazed at him deeply. ‘He lives with my mum at the moment, in Kent. I’m saving all my money for him. Don’t tell anyone, will you?
‘Don’t forget to have a baby, Sabs,’ she offered suddenly. ‘People are so busy telling you how much it hurts, and how hard and ghastly it is, that they forget to tell you how much fun it is too. I have such a laugh with George – he’s so noisy and cheeky and opinionated, he’s got the dirtiest laugh. I’ll tell you more about him later if you like.’ Her face was completely lit up. ‘Not that I want to bore you,’ she added hopefully.
‘He’s gorgeous, Arlie, and I want to hear all about him,’ said Saba. She surprised herself by adding, ‘You’re lucky,’ and meaning it. Normally speaking, she found people being soppy about their children boring, all that talk about its little fingers and funny little ways, but in this impermanent world, having a baby seemed a wonderful thing, an act of bravery in itself.
‘Yes, I am lucky,’ Arleta agreed. ‘As long as I can keep a roof over that little varmint’s head, I’ll feel proud of myself, and so far, I have . . . because what I . . .’ Her voice was drifting, and trailing; sleep was catching up on her at last. ‘What I . . . one day . . .’ but she’d already gone to sleep.
Janine woke them up at nine o’clock the next morning. She stood, feet in third position, the perfect arc of her eyebrows raised in the direction of their empty bottle, the overflowing ashtrays, their smudged mascara, and, worst sin of all, the fact that they’d slept in their make-up. She tapped her feet rhythmically until they opened their eyes.
‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,’ she said, although a small twitch seemed to have developed in her lip, ‘but we’re leaving for the desert tomorrow. Max Bagley came around earlier in an absolute fury because you were so late to bed. I hope I heard this wrong, but I think he said something about sending you both home. He’ll be back in an hour.’
‘Ignore the stupid cow,’ Arleta said when Janine, having dropped her bombshell, waddled off in her feet-splayed ballet-dancer way. ‘There’s one in every company – in the Merrybelles we called them the EMS – the Envy, Malice and Spites – and it’s written all over her. It’s probably because she wasn’t asked to do one of her special dances last night.’
But Janine hadn’t made the story up. At eleven thirty, a muffled male voice came through the door. ‘Are you decent, girls?’
‘Oh damn it to buggeration.’ Arleta, who’d run out of Tahitian Sunset was standing in her silk kimono with half a bottle of peroxide on her head. ‘Wait! Wait! Wait!’ she shouted as the knocking grew louder.
She wrapped her hair in a turban and opened the door.
‘Mr Bagley!’ She switched her professional smile on. ‘What a lovely treat, but why so early?’
His linen suit was rumpled; he looked as if he hadn’t slept.
‘Cut the flannel, Arleta,’ he said, curtly. ‘I’m furious with both of you, but no time to talk now. All Cairo concerts cancelled. I’ve been up most of the night making the new arrangements. We leave tomorrow.’