Jasmine Nights (49 page)

And so it was that all the happiness about singing, and Dom, and travelling, and even the thought of home and Pomeroy Street, the simple marvel of being alive, now felt not wrong exactly, but like a form of extreme naivety that deserved punishment. How could she not have seen the world’s traps; nor felt the cruelty and randomness of war; nor seen that people were almost never who you thought they were? The hard truth was she’d broken up her family by coming here.

During the long days of convalescence in the flat, lonely and cut adrift from work, she began to hate the talents that had led her here. She’d gone around in this stupid bubble of self-regard and now the bubble had burst and she deserved everything she’d got.

After a few days’ rest, she went to see Furness at the ENSA office at the Kasr-el-Nil to ask about a flight home to England. She’d more or less decided, when the war was over, to go back to Wales and get a sensible job, in an office, or perhaps as a nanny to some family. There was a peculiar atmosphere about this meeting – Furness had given her a sort of deaf smile before he’d said he was sorry to hear she’d been unwell. He’d fiddled irritably during their interview with the files on his desk as if he couldn’t wait for her to leave. He’d do what he could, he said at last, with a shuddering sigh, but there were now vast numbers of ENSA entertainers stuck here with no exit visas, plus the flipping king was coming out for a royal visit soon – so anything else she’d like him to do for her?

And then Cleeve turned up. Cleeve who was usually so careful about meeting in anonymous places. Their first meeting since he’d lifted her out of the smashed car beside the road to Istanbul.

He strolled into her apartment, a civilised man again in his nice-looking raincoat and trilby. She was trying to light a fire with green wood, and the apartment was choking with smoke.

‘Good God, Saba,’ he said, batting the fumes away with his hand. ‘What on earth are you trying to do – commit suttee?’

‘What are you talking about?’ She stared at him; she’d forgotten to lock the door and was thrown to see him in the middle of her sitting room.

‘You know, those Hindu widows who throw themselves on the burning pyre.’

He’d looked mortified.

‘Oh God, how tactless! I came to say I was sorry to hear about your chap. Not a good start. Sorry.’

‘How did you hear?’ She was staring at him.

‘Well, you know – all part of the job? Look, can we go out for a cup of tea or something? I shouldn’t really be here.’

In the coffee shop he changed places twice and fiddled with his spoon. ‘Saba,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come and see you – I was desperately upset about what happened in Turkey, but it wasn’t safe for me to hang around.’

She saw a new look in his eye, a crumpled look of hurt and what may or may not have been intense concern; who knew who to trust now? He cleared his throat.

‘Where did you find me?’ she said. ‘In Turkey, I mean.’

‘Under a tree, in a ditch. The car was burning beside you, you were jolly lucky.’

He held his top teeth over his lower lip, which had begun to tremble. She looked away.

‘It was horrid, Saba. I feel guilty about what happened. Ten minutes later and I don’t like to think.’

‘Well don’t.’ She couldn’t stand the thought of him being emotional, or talking about Felipe – not yet.

‘What happened to Jenke?’ she asked him. ‘I’d at least like to know that. He had the documents. Did he get away?’

‘Yes.’

She waited for more.

‘Is that it? Just yes, nothing else?’ She could hear her voice rising.

‘No.’

‘Was it useful – his information?’

‘I think so.’

Cleeve lit a cigarette and gave a little gasp.

‘I think it was all right,’ he said faintly. He leaned over and took her hand and looked her in the eye in a way she found unnerving.

‘Saba,’ he said, ‘are you really all right? I’ve been so very worried about you.’

She felt his fingers close around her hand and hoped he would take them away soon.

‘I’m not sure we should have sent you there.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘It was mine. I wanted to travel, I loved the singing – everybody has their Achilles heel, I found mine.’

‘You still have bruises.’ When he pointed in a hangdog way towards her forehead, she clenched her fists under the table – his sympathy was almost unbearable.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I want to go home, you can help me with that. When I asked Captain Furness last week, he would hardly talk to me. He also didn’t ask a thing about the accident, he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.’ Her voice throbbed with rage. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd that I—’

‘No, it doesn’t, Saba,’ he interrupted her, ‘because this could ruin his career: the ENSA set-up is incredibly fragile: the brass hats resent the fact that they take up time and trucks and things, they think of performers as badly behaved children, so when things go belly-up, both sides rush to bury it.’

‘Dermot,’ she’d been steeling herself for this ever since they’d sat down, ‘there’s one thing I really do need to ask you. My friend . . . the pilot . . . he’s missing presumed dead. Is there any chance . . .’

‘No.’ Cleeve pulled away from her. ‘None whatsoever . . . sorry, but absolutely none.’ His eyes were focused on a tatty poster hanging on the wall above her head, it showed a woman floating down the Nile and drinking Ovaltine. ‘Don’t you think it’s always better to tell the truth?’

‘Surely someone can help me look – Jenke or someone?’

‘No. Sorry, Saba . . . let’s be clear right away. This work doesn’t come with a quid pro quo. I shouldn’t be here now.’ He fiddled with his raincoat belt.

‘Well, give Jenke my regards when you see him,’ she said, standing up.

‘I don’t think I will see him again,’ he said softly. ‘That’s how it is here – ships passing in the night, although sometimes the consonant could easily be changed.’

The following day, Max Bagley dropped by, so happy to be back in Cairo, he said, he could have cried. He’d been in the punishment zone, Ismailia, this summer directing a company that made their lot look like models of sanity. Half the dancers had gone down with foot rot because it was so hot; one of the comedians had turned out to have epilepsy.

He took her to Groppi’s, ordered macaroons and ice cream, and after some small talk, and a sprinkling of compliments, he looked at her with his bright, calculating eyes.

‘The shows I mentioned. We’ve got some absolute corkers coming up. No chance of you coming back, I suppose?’

His smile was as sweet and innocent as the ice cream that ringed his mouth, but she’d acquired, almost overnight it seemed, the habit of suspicion.

‘No chance, Max, I’m afraid. I’m waiting to go home.’

‘So I hear.’ He pushed a macaroon towards her. ‘Try one of these, they’re divine.’

‘No thanks, I’ve just had breakfast.’ A lie but she couldn’t stand another lecture about eating up.

‘Well let me tickle your fancy with this, Super Sabs,’ he said, through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Thing is, I’ve written a musical.’ Pause for a look of thrilling intensity. ‘It’s easily the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ll be casting after Christmas, should you change your mind.’

‘Thanks, Max,’ she said quietly, ‘but I won’t change my mind. It’s nice of you to think of me.’

‘Saba, may I say one thing?’ He propped his chin in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I know I was a bit sharp with you during rehearsals. I’ve got a nasty tongue sometimes because I want everything to be perfect, but I only do it with people I respect, and what I should have made perfectly clear to you is that you were . . . are,’ he corrected himself, ‘good, very good. I think you have a great future ahead of you. End of apology. More grovel to follow if necessary.’ He touched his forehead, mouth and chest in a mock-salaam.

There was no glow of pleasure when he said this. It all sounded like flannel to her.

‘Sorry, Max,’ she said. ‘I’m not trying to be a prima donna.’

He wiped his mouth with a napkin and stared at her.

‘It’s like being an athlete, Sabs, you can’t let the muscles go slack.’

‘I know that.’

‘It’s not just the talent fairy waving her little wand.’

‘Gosh. Really?’ She pushed the crumbs into a little pile with her finger, and looked at him.

‘Did that sound patronising?’

‘Only a bit, Max, but thanks for trying.’

As he drained his cup in one draught, she felt the click of his charm being switched off. She knew by now how Max’s mind worked: the wheels would already be churning inside his brain about who to cast as her replacement; and later there would probably be a satisfying bitch to whoever was at hand about how that Saba Tarcan wasn’t as good as she thought she was – how he’d put his finger on her unique flaws the moment he’d seen her – for there was a fire of ego inside Max Bagley that needed to be stoked more or less constantly.

‘What happened to Janine?’ she asked him while he was searching for his hat.

‘She went to India and then, or so I gather, was sent home.’ He gave her a beady look. ‘Couldn’t cope at all.’ There was a pause. ‘She was an awful drip, wasn’t she?’ he added. ‘Lovely line, but no sense of humour whatsoever.’

‘When I thought about her later,’ she said, ‘I mean after I left the company, I felt sorry for her. She told me once she’d been having ballet lessons since she was three years old, that every scrap of the family money went on her. She didn’t have a childhood, and now she won’t have a proper career because just when everything was starting to open up for her, the war came – she’s sure she’ll be past her prime when it’s over; dancers are unlucky like that.’

‘Well the war’s ballsed up a lot of lives.’ Max wasn’t the slightest bit interested. ‘So I can’t feel very boo-hoo about that.’

He did at least insist on walking her home; it had started to drizzle and the sky was thunderously grey.

‘Funny, isn’t it, being in a company?’ he said as they picked their way over broken pavements. ‘One moment you’re all madly cosy – you know all about each other’s love affairs, the state of their bowels, what they like to eat for breakfast, their weaknesses, their breaking points – and the next,
pouff!
Gone. When you’re in a show, it seems like the most important thing in the world.’ His voice trailed off wearily.

‘What will you do when the war’s over, Max?’

‘Dunno. Another job maybe,’ he said grimly. ‘Go on tour again.’ She was shocked by how worn-out he sounded.

‘Why not go home for a while and have a proper holiday?’ He’d talked about a place in London.

‘To my bedsit in Muswell Hill,’ he said in the same flat voice. ‘If it’s still standing. Whizzoo! What fun.’

Boggers next, en route to a job in India. The usual leotard replaced by a shiny ill-fitting suit made, he told her proudly, by a tailor in the souk. He stood in the middle of the room discreetly tensing and flexing various muscles and made a stumbling speech he’d obviously prepared beforehand. He told Saba that she was a very nice and beautiful lady, and that when the war was over they should move to Brazil and form a double act there. If she wanted it very much they could get married.

She stumbled through a speech of her own: so kind of him, wonderful opportunity, but going home, etc., and she was tremendously grateful when Arleta suddenly arrived with enough energy left over from a two-hour rehearsal to admire the suit, which had obviously been bought for the occasion, and pinch his cheeks, and ask him to share mess number one with them. Saba watched her in awe.

When he left, Arleta collapsed on to the sofa like a rag doll and said:

‘God, I feel
dire
. I’m practically certain I’m getting a cold or flu or something, which is why I have a huge,
huge
boon to beg of you.’

She rolled on to the floor, clasped her hands together in prayer, and begged Saba to help her out the following night at a small concert to be held at a supply depot near Suez.

‘Get up, you silly woman!’ Saba didn’t feel like joking, much less performing. ‘What do you have in mind?’

She knew she wasn’t ready for work. But Arleta was persuasive. Only a couple of duets, she said. It would be fun. Good old Dr Footlights would get her through.

But he hadn’t. She’d done it for Arleta, who, red-nosed and even croakier than the day before, was thrilled to have her back. At the depot, Arleta did a very grown-up version of ‘Christopher Robin is Saying His Prayers’ (
Wasn’t it fun in the bath tonight? The cold’s so cold, and the hot’s so hot
), and they’d sung a couple of duets together, light-hearted things: ‘Makin’ Whoopee’, done with two prams, then a spoof on ‘Cheek to Cheek’, when they pretended to be GI Janes whose cheeks got stuck together by chewing gum. Arleta, radiantly restored to health, had chewed up the scenery a bit with some extravagant shimmying at the end of the choruses, but the men seemed to love it and they left the stage to a shrill blast of wolf whistles.

And Saba, looking down from the stage at the sea of khaki men with their lonely, eager faces, made an unhappy discovery: you didn’t need heart or soul to make an audience cheer and clap – at a pinch, another part of you would take over like a well-schooled circus pony.

After the interval, Arleta, who was about to do her solo, ran from the stage into the wings clutching her throat dramatically and pretending to strangle herself.

‘I can’t. C
an’t
.’ Her voice cracked into a faint whisper. ‘Voice completely gone.’

Well, maybe it was a trick, and maybe it wasn’t, but there was nothing for it but for Saba, unrehearsed and unprepared, to take over. She was doing fine, until a boy in the front row asked for ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. The last time she’d sung it, they’d been in bed together, in the Rue Lepsius room, her face against his chest, his hand combing her hair.

Halfway through the song, she felt a wave of blackest misery sweep over her; her throat seemed to close down. The boy who’d requested the song – a skinny kid, with a new short back and sides – looked baffled as she left the stage early, the band still playing an echo of the chorus.