Jasmine Nights (18 page)

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Arleta tugged at her turban. ‘Darling, do give me a second, I’ve absolutely got to wash this stuff off.’

‘I haven’t got a second.’ Bagley’s eyes were bulging, he was breathing like a train. ‘I must dash round and tell the others.’

‘Why are they moving us so fast?’ Janine walked in – her face shining with cold cream.

‘I think they think the Germans are coming. Yet again.’ Bagley smiled unpleasantly.

‘Well I’ve got my panic bag packed.’ She shot the girls a triumphant look. ‘You see, I knew this would happen.’

Janine’s panic bag, as she was fond of telling them, held her emergency tutus, her pyjamas, her medical supplies, toothbrush, make-up and gut reviver. Arleta had tried to pull her leg when she’d first heard about the gut reviver. ‘It’s for tennis racquets, but it prolongs the life of my ballet shoes,’ Janine had told her without the trace of a smile.

‘Yes, I think panic bags are a good idea,’ said Bagley quietly. ‘Leave anything inessential at the ENSA offices. With any luck we’ll be back soon, or so they tell me.’

‘So you’ll be travelling with us? Definitely?’ Janine stared at him like a child about to be separated from its cuddly toy.

‘Yep, I’ll be there; Captain Furness will be pulling our strings from Cairo. Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he turned on his heel, ‘I’ve got a mass of things to do. Saba, put your shoes on and come with me. I need to have a word with you in private.

‘She’ll be back in about an hour and a half,’ he informed the others. ‘Pack up the flat while she’s gone.’

‘What in hell were you up to last night?’ Bagley exploded as soon as they were alone in the car together. He was driving erratically, one hand on the wheel, the other clenched. ‘Who asked
you
to get up and sing? Who asked you to sing in Arabic, for God’s sake? For all I know, you could have been singing “Eskimo Nell”. I really should send you home immediately, the
cheek
of you.’ When he turned and looked at her, his face was so contorted with rage she thought he might strike her.

Saba was thunderstruck. She’d assumed Cleeve would warn him, but now, what to say in her defence?

She heard herself mumble, ‘I’m sorry, it was only a bit of fun.’

‘A bit of fun.’ Bagley roared the engine and drove wildly for a while in and out of the traffic. ‘Do you have any idea, Saba, how stupid that sounds? This could not be a more sensitive time.’ He spat the words out one at a time.

‘I know.’

‘No you don’t. No,’ he gunned the engine again, ‘of course you don’t. You don’t think because your head is up your . . . because you have an ostrich mentality. You don’t see that the brass hats think of us most of the time as a bloody nuisance because we can’t follow orders, or that last night, after you’d had your
bit of fun
, I got hauled over the coals by Captain Furness.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am.’ Inwardly raging at the unfairness of this.

‘The other thing is’ – he pulled the car over to the side of the road, almost knocking over an old man selling watermelon juice. He turned off the ignition and jerked on the brake – ‘and perhaps more importantly, well at least to me – you
weren’t very good
.’

Ouch, that hurt.

‘The band seemed to like it.’

‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘What the hell does it matter what the band likes? You probably thought you were marvellous, but you weren’t. And that matters to me. My reputation is on the line.’

She could hear herself breathing shallowly; he was attacking her, and not for the first time.

Two days before, they’d had, at his request, a private session together, ostensibly to choose new songs, and it had not gone well. She’d sung, ‘The Man That Got Away’ for him without accompaniment, and halfway through, he’d held his hand up to stop her.

‘No, no, no, no, that’s hopeless,’ he’d said at last. ‘And I’m going to tell you exactly why – will you mind that?’ He’d pulled her around so that she stood right in front of him.

‘Of course not,’ she said, feeling completely exposed.

He’d lit a cigarette, removed a piece of tobacco from his tongue, and looked at her again.

‘You’re a good-looking girl,’ he said, exhaling smoke. ‘Men find you attractive. You could stand up there and wiggle your shoulders and flash your smile and sing in tune – and there is no question that because your natural voice is good, you will, for most known purposes, thrill them to bits. But the problem for me is I’m not getting
you
. Not yet.’

‘What do you mean, you’re not getting me?’ She wanted to smack him round the chops but was determined to remain calm. How dare he manhandle her like that?

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ his kindness almost more upsetting. ‘Your voice is warm in tone, and sometimes you’re brave in your delivery – the image I get is of a child flinging herself off a rock into the sea, but at the moment, I only get that girl in flashes.’ He sighed, ignoring the tears that had started their maddening descent. ‘It’s potent stuff when I get that: for example, yesterday, when you sang “Deep Purple”, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. But then you did “St Louis Blues” like some weary old black lady that’s got to pick a bale of cotton before she goes to bed, and that’s when I feel I’m getting Saba doing a pretty good imitation of Bessie Smith; you used all her intonations and phrasings, and why not, she’s brilliant. But that’s lazy stuff, and at some point you have to ask yourself: do I want to be a second-rate imitation of Bessie Smith, or Helen Forrest or whoever is your idol, or do I want to be me?’

Her anger died and she felt instantly shamed; what he said was partly true. She’d learned her jazz standards from the records of the people who sang them: breathed when they breathed, asked her accompanists to play the tunes as close to their arrangements as possible. Was it laziness or insecurity that had made her swallow their magic whole? She’d never really questioned this before; nor for that matter had anybody else.

And the most painful part was that although she didn’t like Bagley, she held him in high esteem – they all did. The cast had nicknamed him BG for Boy Genius; and she’d seen in rehearsal the lightning speed with which he transcribed music into different keys, or picked up a harmony and sang with you. How he could make up lyrics on the spot. When he’d talked about finding her special songs to sing her spirits had soared, thinking she could learn from him, but now she saw she had desperately disappointed him in every way.

It took her a while to realise that he had been driving her around in a circle for the purposes of this rocket. Outside on the streets, she saw more soldiers and airmen than she had before, and it seemed to her that the sky was darker than usual although she could not be sure.

‘Please don’t send me home,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear it now, not without doing a proper concert.’ Going home now would feel like one of the biggest defeats of her life.

‘I can’t,’ he said grimly. ‘No replacement, but do that again and you’ll be on that plane so fast you won’t know what’s hit you. Understand?’

He slipped his hand suddenly down her brassiere and squeezed her breast hard.

‘
Understand?
’

‘What are you doing?’ She leapt away, her face scarlet.

‘Nothing,’ he said coldly. ‘What did you think I was doing?’

‘Something,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘Do that again, and I’ll deck you one.’

He dipped his head and gave her a blank look, as if she was speaking some obscure foreign language.

‘Oh dearie me!’ he muttered. ‘Don’t we take ourself seriously.’

‘Not really,’ she spat out, ‘but I don’t like that.’

‘Well, there is something else you might like to know,’ he continued smoothly, as if absolutely nothing had taken place. ‘A probably more important thing,’ he said with a sarcastic smile. ‘From now on, we’ll be going to some very dangerous places. Last week one of the ENSA groups at a hospital camp near Alex was bombed very badly. A shocking do, blood and bodies everywhere. It hasn’t been on the news yet, but you’ll soon hear. So the party is well and truly over. Got that?’

‘Got that. Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Didn’t want to frighten you. You can still go home if you want to.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘Well done,’ he said. He was gazing at her intently, and then lifting her hand from the car seat, he kissed it and gave her a very strange look indeed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Are we friends again?’

She said an almost inaudible yes without meaning it, feeling compromised and miserable and disliking his rather patronising smirk but not knowing what else to say. She was going to have to watch him now.

Next they drove to the ENSA offices at Sharia Kasr-el-Nil, Bagley told her to stay in the car while he dashed upstairs to talk to Furness about a portable stage.

A few moments later, an NCO clattered down the stairs with the car keys in his hand.

‘Mr Bagley says they’ve had a message from radio ops. I’m to take you over to Port Said Street.’

Cleeve’s address.

‘Are you sure that’s right?’ She was terrified now of doing anything without Bagley’s permission.

‘It’s written down here, miss.’ The NCO showed her the official form. ‘And then you’re to go straight back to your quarters and pack – you’re leaving Cairo at sixteen hundred hours tomorrow.’

‘Relax, Saba,’ Cleeve said, when she told him this. They were in a small, anonymous café two blocks from his apartment. It was empty apart from them. ‘I know your itinerary, and we have time for coffee, ice cream and a chat. Cheer up, old bean,’ he handed her one of the cones, ‘it may never happen.’

‘It almost did,’ she said. ‘Max Bagley heard me singing last night at the Mena House. He’s livid – I thought you said you were going to tell him. Listen, I didn’t order this, I don’t want it, you eat it.’

He licked one of the glistening scoops.

‘Yum, yum,’ he said. ‘You should try this mastika one – it has a kind of raisiny, liqueury flavour and is much better than the strawberry one. Quite sure I can’t tempt you?’

When she didn’t answer, he said, ‘Saba. Listen. Bagley will be dealt with, and you were marvellous last night – you did so well.’ He tapped his ice-cream spoon against her arm. ‘Ozan’s sure to book you.’

She gave him a watery smile. ‘Really?’

‘Really. I mean, my Arabic is not perfect, but you looked and sounded so right. The dress too: absolute perfection.’

‘I like singing those songs,’ she told him humbly. ‘They remind me of home.’ Battered after her horrible morning with Bagley, she was soaking up his compliments like a thirsty plant.

‘I didn’t see you there,’ she said suddenly.

‘I didn’t want you to,’ he said quietly. ‘And I didn’t expect Max to be there either – so sorry about that. Did you say anything to him?’

‘You told me not to.’

‘Good,’ he said quietly. ‘Next time we ask you to do something, we’ll clear it with him, but don’t forget, as far as he’s concerned, I’m only the broadcast man.

‘You’re very special, young lady,’ he added randomly.

She could see through the café window the NCO walking towards them.

‘You’ll be off to the Canal Zone soon, and then touring,’ Cleeve said quickly – he’d seen him too. ‘But I have a small job for you before you go.’

‘How do you know where we’re going? We haven’t been told.’

‘I know.’ He licked a smear of ice cream from his lips; drained the rest of his coffee. ‘I’ll be in contact again, maybe in a week.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll do a broadcast. Some of the troops in Ismailia have been badly neglected. It won’t ruffle any feathers whatsoever.’

The NCO got out of the car and folded his arms.

‘He’s waiting for me,’ Saba said.

‘Before you go,’ he said softly, ‘one last question.’

‘What?’

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Safer for everyone. If you get one, be careful what you write to him.’

‘I will.’ Her heart began to hammer in her chest, as if it knew something she didn’t.

‘And the best of British, out in the desert.’ Cleeve’s hand was moist with sweat as he shook hers. ‘It will be an experience you will never forget.’

Willie was practising his fez routine in his room at the YMCA when he saw the first flutterings of charred black paper go past his window.

A drunken soldier had warned him, two nights before, in the Delta Bar, that the burning of official papers at the British Embassy would be the first sign that the Germans were coming. And so, it had come. He felt both calm and brave as he took off his fez, sat on the bed and put his shoes on. His first thought was for Arleta – he’d loved her for so long, and now he must get his fat old carcass across town and rescue her and the other girls.

It was hard to find a taxi, so he shuffled and wheezed the three blocks towards the girls’ digs. He toiled his way up the dark and narrow staircase, bent double near the bathroom on the first floor to get his breath back.

Janine opened the door.

‘Are you gels all right?’ he gasped. Three buttons of his pyjama top had come undone, and the sweating mound of his stomach poked through.

‘Fine,’ Janine regarded him with some distaste, ‘but desperately busy. We’re all leaving tomorrow – Saba’s on her way back now.’

He sat down heavily in a wicker chair.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but take a look at this.’ He hauled himself out of the chair and opened their shutters. The air outside was smoky and full of charred bits of paper.

‘Oh good God.’ Janine’s shoulders had collapsed. ‘What on earth . . .?’ She started to cough delicately.

Arleta appeared from the bathroom, damp and delicious in a silk nightie.

‘What’s up?’

Willie led her by the hand to the window. The burned papers fluttered on down. Janine slammed the shutters. ‘Don’t let them see any light,’ she said.

‘What is it, pet?’ When Arleta squeezed the old man’s hand, his heart swelled with protective love for her.

‘The situation is as follows.’ Fear made Willie maddeningly slow and inarticulate. ‘I was having this drink the other night with a squaddie I met . . . not the Grenadier but the other one . . . Do you know the place on . . . Oh damn, what is it? . . . Oh yes, Soliman Pasha Square. Anyway, I was having a beer with this fellow from . . . it was either the Royal Scots Guards or the—’