Stewart, Angus (25 page)

'I suppose the thing is always rather tenuously balanced,' Brown said, when they were motoring again. 'Particularly perhaps when the directional impulse itself tends to waver. Problem is that, having rationalised away the
cause
—the—the incapacity persists. Which is against all the rules of psychology. Unless there's something still hidden. There may be. What happened was very simple. I was in England shortly after the baby was born. And I ran into quite one of my oldest friends. Someone I'd been at school with, and at Cambridge. He'd always been an outsider. But dead hetero. That can happen. An alone walking person, but with nothing ever quite definable as to why. It was only now, and apropos of nothing much at all, that he told me his parents had never been married. It was only now he was able to. Perhaps because the outsider in me was in need of support at the time. Perhaps because he was now a successful man. Either way, there was no direct association. I'd not mentioned Nashib. But the point was, particularly looking back into the adolescence we'd closely shared, I knew he'd been crippled. It was a lot. And not merely through our superficial social agencies—if those ever really can be relegated to inconsiderable. He was already too real a person to kid. But the bang had been at trauma level. Being different was ingrained, become a way of life . . .

'I got back here to find I'd paid for Nashib with my sex. At least most has gone. One
assumes
only temporarily. It's the only physiological function that can't go physically wrong. Or so they say. Nature's obduracy, I suppose. A drive in man where even Psyche's forbidden to interfere for long. One hopes . . .'

Brown's voice trailed away again. 'All when Manolo's so lovely,' he came back; and Jay was unsure whether the gamesomeness sought now to cover the unwonted nature of his confession. 'It's been over a year. Not that I've allowed him to get bored. It would be asking for trouble in this unprincipled town. We wait not idly—as someone surely has on their coat of arms . . .

'Meanwhile, there's the true problem of Nashib.' He became serious. 'The nagging, nagging problem of Nashib. I love him dearly. Just haven't acknowledged him as human yet. Too much Buddhism, perhaps. But, blast it, I've gone and used his name. Mum's ears are up.'

They were. Naima was listening to what must have been a meaningless monologue intently. It occurred to Jay she had probably never heard Brown talk so much before.

'I'd plump for a straight lie,' Jay said. Maintain it ruthlessly.'

'You mean—death in childbirth or something?'

Jay felt uncomfortable. The very ambivalence of his position had prompted him to a precipitate answer. The problem was insoluble. No pretence could be proof against a child's need for self-discovery, identity, as it grew up. The uncertainty could only do harm, while the inevitable
dénouement
could be catastrophic. This Brown must know himself, even if he hadn't accepted it. Brown went off at a tangent, confirming the second premise.

'Islam conducts these things so much more wisely,' he said. 'Four legal wives. As many concubines as your bank manager permits. And there's no distinction made at all as between the children of one group or the other. But Nashib's down for Winchester. You know, I think I've made rather a mess . . .'

The taxi joined the highroad again. The, ordeal by potholes was over. Jay looked at his watch, and it was four a.m. The stars were undimmed.

'Have you ever felt yourself in danger here? Been afraid?' Brown asked suddenly.

Jay paused a moment. There had been that same intensity of anxiety behind Brown's tone. 'Twice,' he said. 'Only the risk was maybe only mild violence. Strangely, I wasn't afraid. This was a black unhappiness in me at the time—I was in a very depressed state, drifting for weeks in some para-consciousness, and not much aware of external reality. A couple of blokes closed in on me one night as I was crossing the open ground before Ain Hyani, walking back from the town. I found myself playing the old B-movie trick—dropped my hand into my raincoat pocket, and said, "
Agi
!"—with sadistic, quite welcoming sort of slowness. They sheered off. If there'd been room for fear in the depression, if I hadn't been more than a little schizoid at the time, the act couldn't have been convincing. I really believed I had the wherewithal with which to shoot, I think.

'The other time was similar, though the would-be attackers' motives may have been political indignation. Cairo Radio was hammering at "the Imperialists"—only the day before I had had an unwise argument with a Moroccan upon whose brother, peculiarly one supposes, the "R.A.F." had dropped "an atomic-napalm" in Sinai.—But on this night I'd wandered late into the Medina, and found myself in a dead-end alley, only to become aware that three characters this time had appeared from nowhere, and were lazily blocking the only way out. I'd been exchanging money, and the loss of what was on me would literally have spelled ruin. I studied the last house in the alley severely. The only writing surface I had on me was my passport. I took it out, and made careful notes in that official looking book. Only I thought myself so thoroughly into the act that I
actually
made notes—meaningless ones—slap across a visa page. The haunting fear came later—of the Foreign Office, for defacement, or whatever it's called. Then police agent Gadston advanced upon the undecided youths with the intention of noting their names—also upon the sacred property of H.M. Government. Happily they didn't wait. But ever since I've been uneasy about that particular brinkmanship. Would whatever was possessing him have spontaneously lent agent Gadston the gift of tongues? I have no idea how to make arrests in Moghrebi. The deficiency didn't bother me a bit at the time.'

'Then, like Manolo, you're careful to wear a tie?'

'If for faintly different reasons,' Jay agreed. 'Or some other symbol.'

'Ah, quite.' If Brown proposed to say anything more it was
checked. He started, staring forward through the
windscreen, gripping the back of the driver's seat. Ahead was some kind of road block. As they drew nearer, it was revealed as an efficient striped pole, and two military jeeps. Only slowly did Brown release his grip and slump back into his
seat.

'King's arriving,' Jay said.

'I assume you haven't taken to carrying real hardware,'

It struck Jay that Brown's question was almost hopeful. He shook his head.

'Then presumably we won't be arrested,' Brown said.

'You could try quietly remarking that the king is an oppressive feudal anachronism,' Jay suggested, following his intuition curiously. 'Or better, shout "You are the dogs of Oufkir who murdered Ben Barka!" '

Brown looked at him startled; but said nothing. The taxi came to a halt. An officer peered in at them. Jay didn't at all like the way his eyes lingered upon Naima, who had drawn up her veil as they approached the check point. But the cruel face with its rakishly set green beret disappeared. Behind them the car's boot was lifted and slammed shut. A soldier slapped a dismissive palm against the driver's window, evidently taking pleasure from the fact that even that heavy car lurched under the impact.

They motored into sleeping Dradheb. Jay was preoccupied with the manner of his leave-taking from Naima. In the event this was easily solved. He walked her as far as her door, and then made whispered arrangement to meet her that afternoon. It had come to him that he must pawn something and buy her jewellery. The taxi dropped him at his apartment block.

  *  *  *  *  *

Simon Brown entered his flat cautiously, snapped on the lights, listened. There was no untoward sound. Reflexively he went to the bathroom; tightened the dripping tap, collected Manolo's Grecian runic from the floor, placed it on a hanger.

Manolo was sleeping face down, stark naked amid the tumbled covers, a beautiful, yet vulnerable peace revealed by the soft beam of the flashlight. Surely they wouldn't touch him. Yet Brown was uneasy. He closed the door quietly again; then poured himself a whisky. It was bad enough having to keep his own son in Dradheb, without having someone remark on it. But perhaps Jay Gadston could now be acknowledged as a friend. Sipping his drink, Simon Brown realised he was only putting off the obvious test.
He dialled a number. The 'phone rang unanswered in Dan Gurney's flat.

  *  *  *  *  *

Caroline Adam felt lost, nomadic. She had suddenly been forbidden to work at the Orphanage, and the autocracy of its Moroccan, titular head was sufficient to ensure she did not. Yet the Matron and the two voluntary Englishmen had wanted her. Bill had been particularly sweet, proposing to call upon the lady in her guarded palace on the Mountain, though he scarcely had either the servility or court French to approach this woman, whose word apparently was, quite simply, law. And so Caroline had lost both her jobs. The edict did not however prevent her picnicking on this lonely stretch of beach with the children. That was just as well. The freedom of the place was important to Caroline Adam.

The Royal Navy's link with the orphanage was as surreptitious as her own must now become. When the survey vessel, operating in the Strait, docked in Tangier, a shore party rewired the building miraculously overnight. The plumbing was overhauled, broken windows glazed, and the children's diet dramatically varied by such curiosities as baked beans, half-carcasses of beef, and chocolate. A natural consequence was that the survey vessel's tiny shore station on the desolate Atlantic beach five miles outside the city became a favourite picnicking place. The station consisted of a couple of generator trailers, a Land Rover, and a caravan, and its purpose was to transmit a constant navigational fix to the ship. It had a tall aerial.

Caroline sat in the dunes dusting sand from her legs. It was a brilliant day. On either hand the beach stretched away as far as she could see, and was completely deserted. In a shallow pool the tide had left nearby, two of the children, who were crippled, splashed happily. Others, little more than wandering dots on that vast expanse of shore, were scattered down to the water's edge, fully a quarter of a mile away. The previous night Caroline had met the first officer of the survey ship at a party on board, and now she watched this man, far out on a sand spit, advancing cautiously on all fours as he stalked a group of wading birds with a camera. He had been at it quite half an hour. There was strange fascination in the approach of the inevitable moment, and through her preoccupation Caroline missed the first signs of an extraordinary phenomenon. A mist was rolling in from the sea. Within minutes the brilliant day had been reduced to smoking, yellow fog. She looked about her in primitive awe, senses alerted by the eeriness of the soft, damp pall that enveloped everything, and by the uncanny beauty of it. In the overwhelming silence, slowly, sometimes painfully, the children began to congregate in a world whose elements no longer owned colour, or definition. Where moments before there had been white sand, and blue water chipped gold by the sunlight, they now wandered ankle deep
through a weak solution of Indian ink, that only imperceptibly became sepia. There was no horizon: only a gradual lightening to yellow where the sky had once been. People were blurred, unearthly silhouettes. One child from the nearer pool came wandering towards her. With each step his arms jerked up in weirdly repeated arabesques, balancing the slow progress of his crippled body. His companion still sat with abandonment in the shallows, facing where the sea had once been.

'Quick cup of tea?' The giant loomed over her, his voice strangely distorted. Even at that range she would have been unsure whether it was the first officer had it not been for the camera slung against his naked chest.

'Whatever's happening?' Caroline asked incredulously. Beside her, the officer's laugh sounded disembodied. 'Just sea mist. Often happens along this coast A hundred yards inland it'll be clear sunshine.'

'The children didn't seem unduly surprised,' Caroline said. 'I think I was terrified.'

'Warmer in the caravan. Come on.' The officer led the way. 'Recovered from the Old Man's champagne cocktails?'

'Well,' Caroline was arch, 'They did conceal a fierce quantity of fundador. Did you get the birds?'

'No, blast it.' The officer opened the door of the caravan, and their voices found more usual resonance. 'I should have had a telephoto. You were watching, were you?'

'I was wishing I had a telephoto myself!' Caroline said. 'Your final approach was so tense.' Not surprisingly, the caravan contained a shelf of classical records. 'Cosy!' Caroline picked one up. 'Is music another of your interests?'

'Yes!' The first officer's laugh was now a pleasant sound in the comfortable compartment. 'I quite often do a watch out here myself. Hence home comforts—Denning,' he called through to the other end of the trailer, where the wireless equipment could be seen, 'we got a kettle on?'

'Ready brewed up, sir,' a voice came in reply.

A seaman appeared with two mugs, and handed them their tea. Caroline smiled at him.

Then, as the rating withdrew again, Caroline glanced curiously at the reverse of the record sleeve. 'It's funny!' she enthused suddenly. 'Once I knew all the facts about the various composers' lives. Now I could scarcely tell you when Beethoven died! Let's see—a quarter to seven on the evening of March twenty-seventh, 1827—right?' She looked up brightly. The expected astonishment on the naval officer's face was oddly gratifying.

It was a quarter to
six
on the
twenty-sixth
.'
He stared at her a moment longer; then called, 'Denning!—Take a mug to Miss Collins on the beach,' he said, as the man appeared. 'She may like some help collecting the children.'

The seaman hesitated a second. Perhaps he was accustomed to think of his officer's classical music and bird-watching as peculiar to bachelorhood. 'Yes, sir,' he said, with just enough innuendo for Caroline to conclude he had been exposed to the television Jeeves.

'And I'd thought you simply a nice, ordinary girl with a strong head for the Old Man's depth charges.' The officer stood up, sniffing with some embarrassment, as the outer door closed behind the rating. He unlocked a small safe built beneath the bunk on which he had been sitting. 'A coded message came this morning. And there's this.' He handed Caroline a sheet of blue paper and a heavy package. 'Not a very lady-like model, I'm afraid.'