The Levant Trilogy (25 page)

Castlebar, who
had heard all this many times before, sat with eyelids down, his chin sulking
into his gullet as though about to fall asleep.

Growing bored
with Jackman's rigmarole, Harriet looked towards the gate, feeling it was time
for Guy to arrive and divert them. Jackman came to a stop at last and
Castlebar's loose, violet-coloured lips gradually trembled into speech.
'B-b-bad news from all quarters these days. My wife's pulling strings, thinks
she can get back here.'

Castlebar's wife
had gone on holiday to England and been trapped there by the outbreak of war.
Harriet, surprised that any ordinary civilian might get passage to Egypt,
asked, 'How could you wangle that?'

'Me wangle it?
You don't think I want her back?'

'Then, how could
she
wangle it?'

'If you knew my
wife, you wouldn't ask. The shortest known distance in the world is the distance
between my wife and what she wants.'

Angela's amused
gaze focussed on Castlebar as he spoke. He looked at her and their eyes held
each other in serious regard for a long moment, then Angela laughed and said in
a teasing
tone, 'So you don't want your
wife here! I wonder, is there some special reason? Another lady, perhaps?'

Castlebar
tittered and taking up the poised cigarette, lit it from the butt of its
predecessor and propped up the one that would succeed it. He started to speak
but was hindered by a fit of coughing and Harriet said, 'He has a whole library
of other ladies.'

Angela raised her
brows, uncertain what was meant, then suddenly screamed with laughter. 'I know,
you buy those dreadful little books they sell in Clot Bey and the Esbekiya!'

Grinning,
Castlebar put his hand into the breast pocket of his limp, grimy linen jacket
and pulled out the comer of a limp and grimy booklet. Before he could put it
back again, Angela snatched it and began to look through it. He made a
half-hearted attempt to retrieve it but left it with her, looking rather proud
of his sensational possession.

Angela, pushing
her chair back, keeping the book out of reach, read the title:
'The Golden
Member -
what have we here? The life story of some wealthy member of parliament?
Hm, hm, hm ...' She turned the grey, coarse-textured pages, piecing the story
together. 'Dear me! The author claims that his was so be-u-u-u-tiful that his
female admirers had a model of it made in pure gold and organized a ceremony in
which several virgins deflowered themselves on this object. How interesting!'
Angela surveyed Castlebar, pretending wide-eyed innocence. 'Do you think it is
all true?'

Jackman clicked
his tongue, as bored by Castlebar's sexual fantasies as Castlebar was by
Jackman's politics. Between them they had finished off the whisky and the wine
and Jackman, interrupting Castlebar's play with Angela, shouted to a safragi,
'Encore garaffo.'

The safragi,
taking up the challenge, replied, 'Mafeesh garaffo.'

Jackman argued
and the safragi, wandering happily over to him, made a gesture of finality.
'Garaffo all finish. Not any more.'

Jackman, not
reflecting the good humour of this refusal, shouted, 'You heard me, you gyppo
bastard. Encore garaffo.'

'What for you say
"gyppo bastard"?' the safragi asked
with dignity. 'Gyppo very good man. You go away. Party finish.'

'And a bloody
awful party it was!'

Angela was
talking behind her hand to Castlebar while he, enfeebled by laughter, tried to
push
The Golden Member
back into his pocket A taxi came through the gate
and Harriet looked longingly towards it, but it was an empty taxi, come to take
people way. She noticed how few remained. The party was indeed over. The
safragi returned with the bill for the whisky. Jackman seemed too preoccupied
to notice it but Castlebar made a vague move towards it Angela, as was expected,
lifted it up, saying, 'My treat'

That settled,
Jackman became more cheerful. 'Let's go on somewhere,' he said then, as a
finale to the Union party, he slapped his knee and began to sing to the tune of
the Egyptian national anthem:

King Farouk,
King Farouk,

Hang your
bollocks on a hook...

His voice was
pitched high and he was directing it, with venomous intent, towards the
Egyptian officers who still sat in reposeful silence under the green light

Oh, Farida's
feeling gay

When
Farouk has got his pay,

But
she's not so fucking happy

When she's
in the family way...

As the verses
went on, the officers seemed to awaken. One rose and went towards a table where
three sat together and the four heads were bent in consultation.

Castlebar said,
apprehensively, 'We'd better get out of here,' but Jackman, drunk and defiant,
sang louder, then his voice trailed weakly away. The officer who had risen, a
large man, was crossing the lawn towards the English group. A sick expression
came over Jackman's face but the officer was friendly. When he reached the
table he bowed, smiled at them all and began to speak in Arabic. Angela, the
only one who understood him, was disconcerted by what she heard. 'He says the
officers wish to thank us for the homage paid to their king.'

'Is he being
ironical?' Harriet asked.

'I don't think
so. He says he regrets that none of them can speak English.'

The officer had
more to say and Angela translated. 'He says they have felt for some time that
the Union should have a piano. They have decided to present you with one.'

The officer,
thanking Angela for her help, kissed her hand, then kissed Harriet's hand and
bowing to Jackman and Castlebar, departed across the grass.

Castlebar,
feeling the incident called for a speedy departure, said, 'Oh, come on,' but
Harriet begged them to wait saying, 'Guy always turns up at the last minute.'
But the club house was dark and the safragis were waiting to lock the gates.
They had to go. Angela suggested they all go and see the belly-dancing at the
Extase but Harriet, with no heart now for the Extase or anywhere else, asked to
be dropped off in Garden City.

'Oh, no, you
don't,' Angela said forcefully. 'You're not leaving me alone with these two.
Anyway, it's my first evening back in Cairo, so let's enjoy ourselves. And you
men, be sports - let me be host.'

This appeal to
male chivalry stirred Castlebar who mumbled, 'Can't let you ...' but as Angela
insisted he agreed without further protest. Angela would be permitted to act
as host.

Harriet said,
'Guy must be home by now. I really ought to go back.'

'Wouldn't bank on
it,' said Jackman. 'He's probably out on the loose. You stick around with us. I
bet we find him somewhere.'

The Extase, one
of the largest open-air night clubs, was in a garden beside the Nile. It was
always crowded. Angela's party had to wait in a queue composed chiefly of
officers and their girls. As the safragi set up make-shift tables in any vacant
corner they could find, the queue dwindled steadily. Moving towards the club
centre, Harriet, made unreasonably expectant by Jackman's bet that they would
find Guy, looked over the tables. This was the last place in Cairo she would be
likely to find Guy yet, not finding him, the whole crowded, noisy, busy garden
was pervaded for her by a desolating emptiness.

On the stage a
man in flannels and striped blazer was imitating the sound of a car changing
gear uphill. His imitation was
exact and the
audience, that would have objected to the sound of a real car, gave him
enthusiastic applause.

The Extase served
only champagne and some of the officers were hilariously drunk. The arc lights
that lit the stage added to the summer heat. The audience seemed a compacted,
sweating, shouting, restless, amorous mass of men and girls who, like Edwina,
only wanted a good time. Harriet wondered how long she would have to stay.

A safragi led
Angela's party to the furthest corner of the auditorium and there Harriet saw
Guy. He was with Edwina. Harriet stood, cold with shock, and stared at them
while Angela said, 'Come on, Harriet, sit down.' Harriet remained where she
was, transfixed, and Angela caught hold of her arm.

'My dear, is
anything the matter? You look as though you'd seen a ghost.'

Harriet sat down
but had to look round again to be sure that Guy was Guy and not an apparition
of the mind. She could not bear what she saw but it remained with her. Guy was
leaning towards Edwina and her hand, which rested on the table, was covered by
his hand. 'I had too much faith in him,' Harriet thought She was determined not
to look at them again but then it came to her: Perhaps it's not Edwina! In
spite of herself, she turned her head and saw Edwina's hair falling as it
always fell, over Edwina's right eye. And that was that.

Angela said,
'Don't you feel well?'

'No, not very. I
get these stomach upsets.'

'Well go as soon as
Calabri's done her dance.'

The dancer, Fawzi
Calabri, was in no hurry to appear. As star of the cabaret, her act came last
and she delayed it until the audience was in a frenzy of anticipation. She was
announced and Harriet had to move her chair in order to see the stage. Doing
so, she saw the table at which Guy and Edwina had been sitting. They were no
longer there. The chairs were empty. The sight of them agitated her. She wanted
to run off in search of Guy but could only stay and watch.

Calabri, a plump,
moon-faced beauty with flesh powdered to an inhuman whiteness, had come on to
the stage. She advanced to the centre and stood there, arms lifted, hands above
her
head, clad in diamonds and a
few gauzy, sparkling whirlabouts, until the uproar died down. Then the
diamonds began to throw off sparks of light, the gauze lifted and her abdomen
moved. The movement began gently, a slight roll and swell that worked itself
gradually into a strong muscular rotation so it seemed the structure of the
stomach was going round in circles. The music increased with the pace while
Calabri stared at her own belly as though it were an unattached object which
she swirled like a lasso. Music and movement reached a convulsive pitch then
began to slow until there was silence and the dancer was still.

Amid the
commotion that followed, Harriet whispered to Angela that she would leave by
herself.

'No, we're all
going.'

A taxi was
waiting outside the club. Harriet was driven to Garden City but Angela made no
move to get out with her.

'I feel I must
see my poet safely home,' Angela laughed at Castlebar who smiled complacently
and put his arm round her.

Jackman, pulling
his nose and sniffing in gloomy disgust, said, 'You can drop me at Munira while
you're about it'

Harriet could
scarcely give thought to the fact, astonishing at some less anxious time, that
Angela could be attracted by Castlebar. She only wanted an explanation from Guy
and was relieved to find he was in the flat. Sitting up in bed, a book in his
hand, he mildly inquired, 'Where have you been? It's after midnight'

'Where have
you
been? I waited for you till the Union closed.'

'I'm sorry,
darling, but Edwina begged me to take her to the Extase.'

'You went to the
Extase, of all places? - when you'd promised to join me at the Union!'

'Don't be cross.
You'll understand when I tell you what happened. I was going to the Union but I
came back to have a shower and change, and I found Edwina in a terrible state.
She had been waiting for Peter Lisdoonvarna for over an hour. When she realized
he did not mean to turn up, she collapsed. I found her lying on the sofa,
crying her eyes out. So what
could I do? I
had to help her. She thought he had gone to the Extase ... And, I may say, it
was all your fault'

'How could it be
my fault?'

'You advised her
to put up a show of indifference and go out with someone else. She did this and
went with the new boy-friend to the Extase. The first thing she saw there was
Peter enjoying himself hugely with another girl - some "Levantine
floosie", according to Edwina. She was convinced that Peter was at the
Extase again with the same floosie and she was beside herself with jealousy.
The only thing that would satisfy her was to go to the Extase and see for
herself. I was really afraid she would do something desperate. I felt I had to
go with her.'

'Supposing Peter
had been there, what would she have done?'

'Well, I'm
thankful to say he wasn't. But you can see I had to comfort her a bit...'

'You were
comforting her more than a bit I saw you. You were holding her hand.'

Guy was jolted,
but not for long. 'I felt sorry for the poor kid.'

'She's not a kid.
She's the same age as I am. I went alone to the Union. She could have gone to
the Extase by herself.'

'Be reasonable,
darling. The Extase and the Union are very different places. And you're a
married woman, you have status. She's just a frightened kid.'