Lace (14 page)

There was a quiet knock at the door. Nick, wearing his waiter’s uniform, opened the door. The respectful look on his face dropped for an instant when he saw Pagan crouched on the bearskin,
then he resumed his waiter’s mask. Abdullah ordered lemonade and tea. Still not quite at ease, he padded nervously around the room.

“Stop prowling,” ordered Pagan.

“I have a restless spirit; if you never feel secure, then naturally you feel restless.”

Nick returned with a laden tray and gave Abdullah another look of servile insolence as he stiffly bent and placed the tray on a low table by the velvet couch. Pagan winked at Nick, who ignored
her. He can’t stand Abdullah, she thought. I wonder why?

Not by one muscle movement did Abdullah show that he had recognised Nick, but he had, and for one swift moment Abdullah remembered the most humiliating moment of his life.

The eight-foot-long green baize board that hung by the staircase had been the hub of school activity; on it was pinned much purple-stenciled information about special classes,
outings, clubs and chapel together with the sports lists. Abdullah remembered his boyish exaltation when one morning on his way back to his room after school breakfast, he saw his name listed on
the house team for Eton football. There it was in a handwritten scrawl—Abdullah. He was the only boy in the school without a surname. He was the only boy in the school without a friend.

Abdullah didn’t understand why every boy—himself included—was of equal rank inside those ancient stone walls. To Abdullah, the centuries-old, traditional top-drawer British
school was a hostile, incomprehensible world. Ignorant of the private language and rigid conventions of his schoolfellows, Abdullah did what was not done and said what—according to Eton
etiquette—should not be said. But now, he had thought, all would be forgiven.
He was on the house team!
With a whoop of excitement he ran along the stone corridor to get his books for
the next lesson.

Each pupil had his own small room with a scarred wooden table, two chairs, a narrow metal convertible bed, a bureau, and a chest in which he kept his sports gear. Abdullah’s was pretty
much the same as the other rooms with one exception: on his wall hung framed photographs of his father’s yacht, his mother dressed for court, his father in ceremonial uniform being decorated
by King George VI, a picture of Abdullah, aged thirteen, taking the salute from the Sydonian Palace Guard, and another picture of himself being kissed on the cheek by Rita Hayworth.

As Abdullah rummaged in his bureau for a missing Latin grammar, he heard voices that he recognised outside the door.

“Can you believe it? Look, Horton, the baboon’s on the House Side.”

“No! Bugger me!!! Can’t think why we even have to have him in Coleridge’s. We certainly shouldn’t have a dirty little wog representing us on the House Side.
Couldn’t they have kept him in the Sine?”

“I suppose he’s not bad at dribbling, but he’s always cornering and sneaking . . .”

“Some nigger lover will put him up for Pop next. . . . Expect he’ll get a record number of blackballs. . . . Black balls, ha, ha, ha! What colour balls do baboons have, royal purple,
d’ye think?” There was a burst of hoarse laughter as a bell rang and the malicious voices drifted away from the notice board.

Abdullah didn’t dare face them. All three were members of Debate, so it was inconceivable that he should complain about them—he would only be laughed at. Abdullah’s hands
started to shake with impotent fury. Why should he care what that trash thought? They were destined merely to be farmers, soldiers or politicians, whereas he was destined to be a king, the leader
of his people, beloved of many tribes, cheered by his men and his women.

Suddenly he took a deep breath. . . . Women! Those arrogant nonentities hadn’t been instructed for three weeks by the
hakim
in Cairo. . . . Standing there, shaking with rage, his
battered Latin grammar book in one hand, a sweet revenge occurred to Abdullah.

He decided that he would have their women.

Pagan left Abdullah’s suite earlier than usual. Instead of leaving the Imperial, she took the elevator to the top floor and ran up the remaining stairs to Nick’s
room, to which, by now, the girls had all made giggling visits. She was in luck, because Nick had just come off duty. He answered her knock in his shirt-sleeves.

“Slumming?” he inquired coldly, as Pagan pecked him on the cheek.

“No, just wondering why you can’t stand Abdullah. You can’t expect to have
all
the attention of all
four
of us, you know, especially when we know that
you’re besotted with Judy.” The springs sagged as she sat on his iron bedstead. Nick looked unhappy.

“Your private life is none of my business.”

“But what is it, Nick? Has Abdi already got a girl?”

“I’ve no idea. Anyway, it’s none of my business, and I wouldn’t tell you if I knew. . . . But . . . we were at school together, and I promise you that bastard Abdullah is
not what he seems. Of course
women
think he’s irresistible. He’s obviously attractive.”

“It’s not only that,” said Pagan with a giggle, “it’s the stage props that are such fun. The bodyguards and the flowing robes and the fierce black mustaches and the
. . . er . . . precautions.” She suddenly wondered if Abdullah was officially allowed to carry firearms in Switzerland. Presumbly he travelled on a diplomatic passport and could do anything
he pleased. She sighed. “I can’t
think
why I haven’t fallen for him, but I haven’t. He’s fascinating, but I’m just not besotted, the way you are with
Judy.”

“Well, you’re bloody lucky, because Abdullah doesn’t treat women like a gentleman, he
uses
them. I mean
he doesn’t care about women.
Not the maids or
chaps’ sisters or even their mothers.”

“Nick! Surely you don’t mean—?”

“What I mean is that he’s oddly . . . objective about women.” Nick didn’t know how to say that Abdullah was calculating and deliberate in his attitude toward Western
women. He used them. He learned from them. His lovemaking was to prove his power over them and their menfolk.

“Oh, Nick, he’s wary about
everyone
, wary of being exploited or shot or whatever other things princes have to be wary of,” Pagan said, thinking Nick merely had a case of
straightforward jealousy.

“And that combination of menace and charm is just what women find irresistible,” Nick said bitterly, and with a tinge of envy.

“Am I to understand that you think Abdi might deliberately play cat-and-mouse with me? Make me miserable?”

“Pagan, stop talking about silly sex games and listen to me. I’m very fond of all four of you, and you know how I feel about Judy. But I’m your
friend.
I wouldn’t
use any of you, and that’s what Abdullah
does.
He has no respect, no understanding of chivalry and he’s . . . no gentleman.”

Pagan threw her head back and laughed. “Darling Nick,” she said, “you are an old auntie! In the future, I’ll wear barbed wire instead of knicker elastic.”

What Pagan wanted to know—and what the whole school wanted to know—was whether Abdullah would invite her to the St. Valentine’s Day Ball. Abdullah was rarely
seen in public, especially after he had hired the horse sleigh one Sunday afternoon and a street photographer took a picture of Pagan and the Prince together. The negative was swiftly sold to
Paris-Match
, and within twenty-four hours it had appeared in newspapers around the world.

Every two days an armful of long-stemmed red roses, with no card attached, arrived for Pagan. “You said red roses were vulgar,” Kate said gleefully, and had a pillow thrown at her.
After the third sheaf, Pagan was summoned to the headmaster’s study and told that she could not accept any more flowers. Monsieur Chardin sounded unusually agitated. Half the gossip writers
of Europe had been plaguing him. No doubt the publicity was good for the school, but he was obliged to display disapproval.

A few evenings later Pagan was called down to the headmaster’s study again. She returned looking bemused. “What happened?” asked Kate, lying on her bed, one foot in the air,
having her toenails polished by Maxine.

“Telephone.”

“Who?”
A telephone call was always an event in their lives.

“My cousin Caspar. He’s our Ambassador in the Emirates. He said that he’s heard I was seeing a great deal of Prince Abdullah, and that I should be
most prudent.”
She giggled nervously. “Caspar also said that in Sydon, women are regarded as possessions and once defiled they’re discarded. In fact, they’re sometimes stoned to death. Can you
imagine?”

Maxine said, “Bloody well keep still, Kate.”

Pagan flung herself on the other bed. “So I asked what had defiled Arab women got to do with me?” She was wearing a tattered Victorian nightgown that was over a hundred years old and
a pair of scarlet Turkish slippers with the toes turned up.

The other two sat up and nail polish dripped on Kate’s ankles as Pagan continued. “Old Caspar said that Abdi was pushed into power long before he was old enough, because his father
is apparently very religious and a bit mad and lives in total seclusion. But Caspar said that although Abdi is very, very tough, he isn’t nearly as sophisticated as he thinks he is, and not
nearly well enough equipped to handle the twentieth century, and if he feels he’s being laughed at or humiliated he can turn nasty.” She giggled. “He went on and on about Abdullah
really being two people—a Western-educated ruler who will negotiate diplomatically with Western politicians and a ruthless, immensely powerful Arab leader whose word is the law and whose
instincts are violent, dangerous and medieval.”

She kicked off the Turkish slippers and jumped on the end of Kate’s bed. Sitting cross-legged, she added, in an offhand manner, very fast, “Caspar also told me that Abdullah is
engaged to be married.”

“What!”
Maxine, in her white nightgown, stopped climbing into bed.
“Who?”

“To some Arab Princess who’s only ten years old! Can you
believe?
They’re going to be married when she’s fifteen.” Pagan tried to sound unconcerned. Her
voice broke and she said unsteadily, “I hooted with laughter, so Caspar got cross and said he was going to phone Mama.”

Suddenly the lights went out, switched off as usual from the headmaster’s apartment, and the moonlight, streaming through the lace curtains, cast a wreath of intertwined pale gray roses on
Maxine’s bed as she tossed back the sheets and rushed over to hug Pagan. “Poor darling, poor darling! He is a bloody two-timer, a rat, a sheet.”

“If it’s true, it sounds medieval,” exclaimed Kate.

“That’s exactly Caspar’s point. Abdi isn’t like a rich Western teenager trying to behave like a man of the world. He’s sort of . . . a ruthless, very powerful
desert hood.” She paused. “I rather think that’s what I find so fascinating.”

“He’s certainly not to be trusted!” Maxine said. “But then of course
no
man should be trusted.”

“Cut out that sophisticated act,” Kate said. “Who
can
you trust?”

“We can trust each other,” Maxine said firmly. So rather solemnly, they all sat on Kate’s bed in the moonlight and promised lasting friendship.

“Through thick and thin,” Pagan said wildly, shaking her hands over her head like a bruised but victorious boxer.

“Thick and thin,” giggled Kate,
“especially
thin.” She prodded Maxine’s still well-covered ribs.

“Sick and sin,” said Maxine, who, like all the French, pronounced “th” as “s.”

“Well, yes, that too,” Kate said thoughtfully.

The next morning Pagan was called out of the classroom, where chunks of Lamartine were being analyzed by Mademoiselle as, in their heads, the girls planned what to wear for the St.
Valentine’s Day Ball and how to get more money from home, supposedly for needlework but really for cigarettes. The lessons were a farce, Kate thought crossly as she continued (under cover of
her sheet of pink blotting paper) to hack out her initials with her nail scissors on the grafitti-covered wooden table. A nimbus of lethargy hung over the schoolroom, which smelled of chalk and
underarm odour; the only noise was the squeak of chalk on a blackboard and the thump of the old upright piano upstairs; maddeningly, the unseen player kept faltering, making the same mistake, then
starting again.

Pagan came back giggling from her telephone call and sat down demurely.

“What was that?” The harassed mademoiselle whipped around from the blackboard just too late to see Pagan, with the top of her wooden ruler, flip a note to Kate. Kate didn’t
send a note in reply because Pagan’s little paper pellets never needed a reply. She only sent them to relieve her boredom. The note said, “Getting ball gown, whoopee!”

When class was finished, Pagan immediately rushed over with her news. “Mama was quite agitated. She just tried to make me promise not to see Abdullah alone. I asked if she could please
send me some decent clothes—which stopped her in her tracks, rather—but I explained that he might invite me to the St. Valentine’s Ball and she knows perfectly well I’ve
nothing to wear. However, I thought I’d better make sure of a dress, so after
she’d
been cut off, I phoned Grandfather and asked him if he couldn’t please see that I had a
proper ball gown. In fact,” she added, a little ashamed, “I hinted that if I wasn’t sent a dress Abdi might cough up for one. Grandfather said he’d be happy to buy me a
dress, but made me promise not to accept any presents from Abdi.”

A few days later a huge dress box was delivered by special messenger to Pagan. The whole school crowded behind her as she ran into the dining room, flung the box on one of the long empty tables,
tore off the wrapping, plunged her arms into crisp layers of white tissue and drew out a beautiful cloud of pale gray net that sparkled with diamond droplets. It was a Norman Hartnell ball gown
with a heart-shaped neckline demurely high, but not impossibly so.

The whole school sighed longingly.