My mother pulled her arm out of my grasp and said, ‘Well, that’s him. Johnson.’
‘You know this Johnson?’ said the courier cautiously. His veins had begun to lie down. ‘Yet you do not stay at the Hotel Mamounia?’
Sir Robert and Lady Kingsley were about to stay at the Hotel Mamounia. For several hundred pounds per night less, my mother and I were staying at the Hotel Golden Sahara: poolside restaurant, sight-seeing facilities and a display of Berber dancing and horsemanship on Mondays and Thursdays. I said, ‘Mr. Johnson has a yacht at Essaouira.’
The driver and the courier digested this information.
‘Maybe,’ said the courier at last. ‘But it is several hours from Marrakesh to the sea. He will have a suite in the Mamounia. It is the custom.’
My mother patted my hand. ‘You think Sir Robert can’t handle this? Of course he can. And what interest has Mr. Johnson in City affairs? None. You told me.’
I knew all that. I was there when Mr. Johnson brushed off Ellwood and Seb with a shovel. I was also there when Mr. Johnson saw Kingsley’s blow up, and was angry. I wondered if Mr. Johnson would have recognised the corpse by the safe. I thought, next time I spoke to Sir Robert, I might mention it.
At the hotel, I found two messages waiting. One, from Lady Kingsley, asked in terrible writing if I would come to the Mamounia next day at four to take tea with her. The other, from Mr. Morgan, was addressed to both my mother and me, and simply said he’d called and was sorry to miss us. I said to my mother, ‘I thought he was climbing Toubkal?’
‘He must have climbed it,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the morning free then tomorrow? I’m going to see some viable Arabs.’
Unfortunately, I knew what she meant by viable Arabs. She meant Omar Sharif, Peter O’Toole and the Desert Song version of Batman. I gave her the guidebooks, to let her see they weren’t in the index. I promised to take her to the Romantic Old Town in the morning, to inspect the Assembly of the Dead and the souks. I unpacked before going to bed. That is, I unpacked everything but the Kingsley MCG papers that Sir Robert had entrusted to me, which I left tidily locked in the suitcase. If there were villains about, they would be rifling Sir Robert’s luggage, not mine. I thought I was in command of the situation.
Next morning I rose, shared a five-course breakfast (extra) delivered (extra) by room service at the behest of my mother, and bought the only newspaper remaining in the hotel shop. It was in French. Postponing the Assembly of the Dead by mutual agreement, I read it by the pool at the feet of my mother, who was bestowed on a lounger with her Sony Walkman clamped to her ears. The cassette cover lay in her lap:
Overcome the Credibility Robbers in your Speech Patterns.
She said, ‘Them foreigners over here: they play football, then?’
I followed her gaze to the newspaper photograph. I said, ‘That’s the Crown Prince of Morocco and the President of FIFA and the Wali of Casablanca attending the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup along with Mrs. Daniel Oppenheim and her husband. Next to it is a picture of the opening of Horse Week at the Royal Polo Club: the foreigners over here also ride horses. Next to that is the opening match for the Royal Tennis Trophy. . .’
‘You don’t need to push it,’ said my mother. ‘They’re an energetic little kingdom, I grant you. But what about all them sad-looking little boys in that picture? Someone nicked all their tickets?’
‘It’s all in honour of the Festival of the Enthronement,’ I said.
‘Well, they don’t look happy, poor little mites,’ said my mother. She bent closer, and I laid a casual arm over the caption. A shadow fell on it. A once-heard Transatlantic voice said, ‘Miss Helmann? Miss Wendy Helmann, that’s right?’
Pug-faced, crewcut and peeling: Mr. Ellwood Pymm of the Canadian press, last seen in Johnson’s club, having lunch with the liquidised Seb. I dispatched an inclination to gape, frown or scream. I said, ‘Mother? This is—’
‘Ellwood Pymm, the
Express
of Toronto,’ he said. ‘Met your lovely daughter in London. I can’t believe it. You’re on vacation?’
He was even wearing a tie. ‘You’re not?’ I said.
‘Comes with the job,’ said Ellwood Pymm. ‘Boys and girls imbibing the spirit of Morocco to take back to the wonderful listeners and readers in Canada. Six jerks from the press, and six radio. You like the hotel?’
‘So far,’ I said. ‘How long are you staying?’ With some adroitness, my mother had concealed the cassette case on the cloth covered piste of her lap. Its successor lay on the grass:
Be Ready to do Handsprings to Resolve Each Perceived Service Failure.
Ellwood Pymm said, ‘I guess long enough to see all those monkeys perform in the square. We’re off to the ski slopes this morning. What’s the place called? Johnson said we mustn’t miss it.’
‘Johnson?’ I said.
The skin on his nose was flaking off like pink coconut. He said, ‘The guy who lunched you in London. He fixed a deal with Kingsley to finish the portrait. You know?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know Johnson had arrived. Does he ski?’
‘Search me,’ said Ellwood Pymm. ‘But he says there’s no snow and a great hotel that specialises in Canadian rye. He says if we play our cards right, we could stay there all day. Have you ever spent a day on mint tea?’
‘Arabs drink it,’ said my mother. ‘And they saw off the French. What’s Canadian rye done for you?’
‘Well, it keeps the Scots out of the bars,’ said Ellwood. ‘I don’t suppose, Mrs. Helmann, that you’d allow your lovely daughter to come with us to Asni? She’d be perfectly safe. Twelve nice boys and girls, and a swimming pool, Johnson says.’
My mother gazed back at Ellwood Pymm, with her olive face and round, ringed black eyes and hand-painted headscarves and three layers of King’s Road ethnic caftan hefted over her girdle. Even in one hour in the shade, she had darkened like a Polaroid film. She said, ‘I remember what it’s like to be young and pretty and a bee round a honeypot. Of course, take Wendy away. Don’t think of me. We was going to the Assembly of the Dead and the souks. Another day, we will go. If I am well enough.’
I looked at Ellwood Pymm and he looked at me. I said, ‘I’m afraid. . .’
He had lovely American manners, when he was sober. He said, ‘Mrs. Helmann, of course I wouldn’t deprive you of Wendy. Some day, if I may, I’ll come and take you both out. Meanwhile, you look after yourselves. You go to the souks. You know the lingo?’
‘No,’ said my mother swiftly.
Ellwood Pymm said, ‘Then why don’t I lend you a phrasebook? You let me have it back when you’re finished. Don’t thank me. Have a wonderful day! This is an amazing old country.’
I took the handbook he was holding out. It was entitled
Making Arab Friends for Your Company
and meant that, whether I wished it or not, he and I were going to have another encounter. My mother looked emotionally grateful. I gave him a smile full of muted appreciation. He lifted the straw hat he had been carrying and prepared to move off. His eyes fell on my forgotten newspaper. ‘Poor little sods,’ he said, with compassion. ‘Now that sure wouldn’t occur in Toronto.’
To reach the walled town of Marrakesh, it is necessary to pass through the wide modern streets of the French city, built during the Protectorate and sunnily Western in style. Between the palms, the orange trees and the marigold beds of the boulevards, horse- drawn victorias full of red tourists are jammed between yellow taxis and droves of snarling Motobecane Vespas Super Bleu ridden by determined veiled women in glasses. At my request, our little taxi dropped us in the shopping quarter, where my mother, before meeting Omar Sharif, required to buy modern postcards.
The market in the Boulevard Mohammed V has not only postcards but a display of every kind of comestible likely to appeal to a middle-aged matron from Europe. My mother, who in motion resembles a baboushka on ball-bearings, rolled semaphoring from alley to alley, pausing before double-beds glaring with citrus fruit. She examined slopes of leeks, onions and radishes, passed by artichokes and wheeled round bins of walnuts and almonds, crates of strawberries and hanks of asparagus tips like embroidery. She inspected a cave of flowers packed from floor to ceiling with roses, lilies, iris, freesias. She arrived at the fish and the meat, the brass, the copper, the handbags of sewn hide and bought twelve colourful postcards, arguing over the price. Someone said, ‘You in trouble again?’
It was Executive Director Mo Morgan, in his pigtail and a terrible T-shirt, with a shopping bag full of Kodak wallets over his forearm. My mother handed one postcard back. ‘Now I need only eleven,’ she said. ‘You finally got bored, climbing that mountain?’
‘Mrs. Helmann,’ he said. ‘Nothing could be as fascinating as your company, but you’re talking bullshit. Come along and have coffee, and I’ll show you some pictures of Toubkal.’
I said, ‘Mr. Morgan. Does Sir Robert know you’re here?’
He looked at me and smiled. His face was so narrow he had a mouth like a split in a peapod. He said, ‘Don’t worry, darling: I’m legitimate. I’m even attending the MCG meetings. At Sir Robert’s request.’
My mother said, ‘I said to Wendy. They won’t refuse you nothing: not after that outlay. Will this coffee be safe?’
‘Does it matter?’ said Mr. Morgan. ‘You’re supposed to be sick, in any case.’
Outside, it was hot. We passed the pharmacies and the jewellers, and the shops selling Dior and Chanel and really good briefcases with sensible handles which I wanted to go back and look at, for one of the things they don’t teach you on executive courses is how to manage your handbag and briefcase while you get round the door of a toilet. We then arrived at a corner café with a bright orange canopy and many white and green tables and chairs, occupied by black-moustached gentlemen. Mr. Morgan took us inside, and gave us coffee in tumblers. Then he and my mother discussed the time-switch on her washing machine while I watched the daily life of your ordinary Marrakesh citizen.
Stout, curly haired men passed in open-necked shirts and cable-knit sweaters. There were women in heelless slippers and trousers carrying white bundles about on their heads, and boys with trays of fine pastries, and women in short skirts and fishnet tights and high heels and handbags. There were robed mothers leading small children stuffed into bright padded tracksuits. There were men in white caps and smart djellabahs with briefcases; and babies carried by children, their bare toes appearing under their elbows. There were donkeys with panniers, and pedal-bikes with bunches of gladioli riding pillion, and invalid cars, and, stationary on the other side of the road, a powder-blue exquisite Sunbeam surrounded by dozens of people. I said, ‘
Look.’
Mr. Morgan spoke. He said, ‘Now that’s a nice pair of legs.’
He was just trying to needle me. I said, ‘I saw that car in London. It belongs to Seb Sullivan.’ I suddenly glimpsed, among the dark heads, a quantity of rippling sandy hair above a mighty pair of shoulders straining through a safari shirt. I said, ‘There
is
Seb Sullivan.’
‘Is that a surprise?’ said my mother. ‘He was to be in the vintage car rally. Three days of partying in Marrakesh. You told me.’
Mr. Morgan was looking from my mother to me. He said, ‘I’m missing something? Who is Seb Sullivan?’
‘Public Relations,’ I said. ‘He and his co-driver Gerry Owen belong to Black & Holroyd, registered sneaks.’ I had got up on my chair. I got down again suddenly. ‘He’s coming here. And look who’s coming with him.’ It was not Gerry Owen.
Mr. Morgan climbed his chair as if it were Toubkal. He said, ‘Hey, that’s the painter guy Johnson. I promised to help with his blues.’
I pulled him down so fast he landed on the floor tiles. I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want him to see us. Can we get out the back?’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ said Kingsley’s Executive Director. ‘We could sit under the table, but the shoeshine boy’d flush us out in a moment. You mean if they see us, the share price will fall?’
‘Roughly,’ I said.
‘I guess,’ said Mo Morgan thoughtfully. ‘Then we’d better stay where we are. Turn your chair. Mrs. Helmann, tell us what they are doing?’
My mother sat with her robed knees apart, and gazed out to the pavement. She said, ‘That’s a beautiful man.’
‘Johnson?’ I said. I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t know that she had suddenly found the Red Shadow: in the world, you simply don’t think of PR in these terms.
She said, ‘You brought up in a zoo? Has a life in business destroyed your sense of symmetry? This Colonel Sullivan is sitting down with the painter. The painter is wearing a jersey from Oxfam.’
I had seen it. In place of the svelte suit for royal occasions, Mr. Johnson had relapsed into bags and a ruinous sweater, with an open shirt collar which someone had ironed very nicely. His watch had cost, I reckoned, a tenth of a painting. Crossing the road with Seb Sullivan he had looked browner than I remembered. His hair hadn’t been recently combed, and if once he had been at odds with Seb Sullivan, he was so no longer: they seemed extraordinarily relaxed, and even joking together. I wondered what about. I said, ‘Never mind. Go on. What are they doing?’
My mother would have made a good boxing commentator. ‘They’ve ordered beers and a coffee. They’re talking. They’ve sent for a
Figaro.
That lovely man is having his boots shone.’
They had tried to shine Mr. Morgan’s shoes too, but he wore dirty sneakers. All the same, he had tossed them a coin, and they had thanked him, smiling. A child wandered in and performed a short, spinning dance, revolving briskly so that his cap-tassels whipped. Mr. Morgan tipped him as well. I said, ‘Do you always throw away money?’
‘Here, I do,’ said Mr. Morgan. ‘They think alms are important. Carry some cigarettes and a purseful of dirhams, and you’ll be surprised at the difference. Also, a word of Arabic helps.’
I remembered Ellwood Pymm’s book. I was about to mention it when an old woman tottered into the café and began to follow the beaten track to our table. Her face beneath the black drapes was creased like the top of my coffee, and she carried a polythene bag in one claw. I waited for my neighbourhood philanthropist to pull out his dirhams and fulfil the old country custom. Instead, she leaned over his shoulder and popped into her bag the wrapped sugar he’d left in his saucer. Then she moved on to the next table and did likewise.