The Levant Trilogy (48 page)

He advanced eagerly, his hands still held up,
and muttered:
'Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa?'

'
I agree. Sit down beside me. I require, as a
penance, that you drink a very large whisky.'

Grinning delightedly, Castlebar sat where he was
told while Jackman, realizing he had been fooled, frowned and indignantly asked:
'Where did you come from?'

While Castlebar was setting up his cigarettes,
Harriet said, 'So Mona is singing in the show? How did Guy manage that?'

Castlebar snuffled and giggled and said, 'You
know what your old man's like. He buttered her up till he had her eating out of
his hand.'

When, Harriet wondered, did all this happen? -
and where? She had the despairing sense of being completely outside Guy's life
and she thought, 'At least I'm going in good time. I'm young enough to start
another life.'

Angela, having permitted Castlebar to return to
the circle, kept her head turned from him while he watched her, willing her to
face him. At last, forced to look round, she met his eyes and for a long minute
they gazed at each other in meaningful intimacy, then Angela stood up. She said
to Harriet, 'I think we should go.'

Flustered and disappointed, Castlebar wailed,
'You going already? The bottle's only half empty.'

'I'll leave it for you and Jake. We girls need
our beauty sleep. I suppose you know we're going on the boat to England. We'll
be away in a few days.'

Castlebar's mouth opened with shock and his
cigarette fell between his knees. While he was scrabbling for it, Angela
gripped Harriet by the arm and hurried her out to the gate where a taxi had
just put down a fare. The two women got into it and, all in an instant, they
were away.

'I thought you and Bill were about to be
reconciled.'

Angela laughed: 'Never in this world. He won't
have the chance to ditch me again. I said I was going and, I'm going. Tomorrow
to fresh woods and pastures new.'

'You're very wise,' Harriet said, thinking that
Angela was a great deal wiser than she expected her to be.

Dobson told the waiting women that, as another
security measure, the ship might leave earlier than intended. He guessed the sailing
date as 28 December.

With time so short, Harriet suggested to Angela
that they visit the places they had always meant to visit. They should see the
great mosques, the Khalifa and the zoo.

'Oh, what fun, yes,' Angela agreed, having the
ability to find fun in everything. But next morning, when they were setting out
for the zoo, the telephone rang. The call was for Angela who stood so long in
the hall, talking in a low voice to the caller, she lost all interest in the
zoo.

Coming back to Harriet, she said, 'I'm sorry
darling, but I don't think I can "zoo" it today. I've still so much
shopping to do.'

'Shall I come with you?'

Angela ignored the question. Wherever she was
going, she meant to go alone. A taxi was waiting for them and she said in
agitated apology: 'You don't mind if I take it? Hassan can get you another
one.'

Not waiting for an answer, Angela hurried from
the flat and Harriet, at a loss, telephoned Mortimer to tell her their probable
departure date.

'So you're really going? It sounds a bit mad to
me,' Mortimer said.

'It is mad, but it's a solution, I can't go on
living in limbo.'

'Well, if it's at all possible, we'll be there
to see you off.'

It seemed then that everything was settled and,
forgetting the zoo, Harriet went out to do some shopping on her own. Returning
for luncheon, she found Marion in the sitting-room, gazing dully at Richard who
was whimpering and throwing his toys about.

'Angela not back yet?'

Marion shook her head and Harriet asked, 'What
have you been doing all morning?'

'Nothing. Richard's got nettle-rash. It makes
him so cross, poor little fellow. Oh, Harriet, to be in England!'

England, it seemed, was a solution for every
difficulty met here.

When Angela had not returned by tea-time,
Harriet went to her room and was relieved to see her splendid cases still piled
against the wall. Without reason, she had feared Angela had gone for good.
Reassured, she told Hassan to bring in the tea-tray.

When he put down the tray, he said, 'Man here'
and he handed Harriet a grimy slip of paper. It authorized the bearer to
collect Lady Hooper's luggage. Going back to the room, Harriet opened the
wardrobe and found it empty. At some recent time, Angela had packed her clothes
in expectation - of what? -perhaps only of a sudden summons to the boat.

The man stood humbly in the doorway and Harriet
asked him: 'Where is Lady Hooper?'

He was one of the itinerant porters who sat
about in the bazaars ready to transport furniture and heavy objects to any part
of the city. He said, 'Lady say she send letter.'

'But where are you taking her luggage?'

'Lady say no say.'

Harriet motioned him to the cases. He was naked
to the waist, short, square and strong-smelling. He belonged to the strict Moslem
sect that believes the Messiah will be born of a male and he wore baggy
pantaloons in order to catch the babe should it present itself without warning.
He was dark-skinned but not negroid. The rope of his trade, his greatest and
perhaps his only possession apart from the pantaloons, encircled his neck and
massive shoulders. His air was savage but his manners were gentle and looking
over the cases to compute their number, he touched them with an amiable, almost
loving, respect. He regretfully shook his head. He could not carry them all at
one time but would have to make two journeys. He asked would the lady be
willing to pay so much? Harriet said she was sure she would.

He sorted the luggage into two heaps then,
grunting and muttering instructions to himself, he roped cases on to his chest,
back and sides, and hoisted others up to his shoulders.

Laden like a pack mule, he grunted his way out
of the flat, leaving behind him a stench of stale sweat. Harriet threw open the
verandah doors and went out into the fresh air. Looking down at him as he went
among the poinsettias to the front gate, she saw that from bearing so much
weight, his feet had become almost circular and appeared to have toes all
round. She watched until he reached the road where he set off at a fast trot
and turned the corner out of sight.

An hour passed, then he came back with the
promised letter: 'Harriet, darling, you can guess what has happened. Bill has
escaped but he's terrified she'll track him down. So we're going into hiding
until she gets used to the separation. If she comes howling to you, tell her
nothing. Sorry to miss the good times on board ship, but you and Marion have
fun for me. See you again one day. Love, Angela.'

'What good times, what fun?' Harriet asked
aloud, angry that she had not foreseen what had happened. Angela had said she
would not give Castlebar a second chance but Harriet, abandoned once, had not
had the sense to see that the same thing could happen again.

No other word came from Angela. Rumours went
round Cairo that she and Castlebar had been sighted in Jerusalem, in Haifa, in
Tel Aviv and in Upper Egypt but their disappearance remained as much a mystery
as the killing of Pinkrose.

Mona Castlebar did call at the fiat, not
'howling' but in such fury, she could scarcely get a word out of her clenched
face. When she found her voice, she accused Harriet: 'You know where they are,
don't you?'

'No. Nobody knows.'

'My God, I'll do for them, you wait and see if I
don't. He'll lose his job. He'll have nothing to live on. I hope they starve.'

'No danger of that. Angela has more than enough
for both of them.'

'So that's it? She bought him with her money? I
thought there must be something. He wouldn't have gone otherwise. She
bought
him.' Bitterly satisfied by this explanation of her husband's perfidy, she
sat brooding on it as though she had nowhere else to go.

It was Christmas Day and everyone except Percy
Gibbon had given presents to Richard. They littered the floor, to the annoyance
of Percy who would, if he dared, have kicked them out of the way.

Mona watched Richard pushing the wheeled toys
about then overturning them pettishly and whimpering his discontent. She looked
as though she liked the scene no better than Percy did and at last, rising, she
said, 'Well, there are some things to be thankful for,' and she took herself
off.

Everyone was home for Christmas luncheon which
was no different from any other luncheon. Richard, put into his high chair,
struggled and cried and spewed out the soft-boiled egg which his mother tried
to spoon into him.

Percy had seen this exhibition often enough but
now, irritated by the toys on the floor, he stared at it with incredulous
distaste so Marion became more nervous than usual. Her hand shook and the egg
yolk went over Richard's chin and bib.

'Disgusting!' Percy said with feeling and Dobson
remonstrated with him:

'Really, Percy, the child has to be fed.'

Brought to the point of open complaint, Percy
hit the table: 'He needn't be fed in public She could take him into her room
-my room, I should say.'

Guy tried to reason with him: 'Oh, come now,
Percy, the child has to be with adults in order to learn table-manners.'

Percy leapt up: 'Well, he won't learn them from
me.'

'That's only too evident,' Harriet said.

At this, Percy strode into the room he shared
with Dobson, slamming the door so violently, Richard began to scream and Marion
to weep, asking: 'What am I going to do? What am I going to do?'

Harriet said: 'Put him in his pram and we'll
take him to the zoo,' but Marion could not face the excursion. Weary of the
petulant child, Harriet went to the zoo alone.

She walked across the river among crowds to whom
Christmas Day, under the brilliant sky, was no better and no worse than any
other day.

Just inside the zoo gates were the parrot stands,
a long row of gaudy colours, each bird different from its neighbours. They gave
occasional squawks but were too busy with preening and fussing and fluttering
over their feathers to make much noise.

Harriet wandered round, desolate that, leaving
Egypt, Angela was not going with her. There was no reason now for going at all.
She had said to Dobson a few days before: 'I know you were kind, getting me a
berth on the ship, but would it make any difference if I changed my mind?'

Dobson observed her reflectively: 'It would make
a difference to you. You look as though a puff of wind would carry you away.
You might catch anything in this condition. I recently heard of a chap who got
tertian malaria and was gone in a matter of hours.'

And Harriet had taken on the responsibility of
Marion who had been dismayed by Angela's flight and, in near panic, all her
incipient apprehensions aroused, had said to Harriet, 'But
you
are
coming, aren't you? You won't leave me. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you
both.'

'Yes, of course I'm coming,' Harriet said and
sighed.

She wondered now how long Marion would require
her support. Angela had planned a life for herself and Harriet but neither
thought to ask what Marion would do in England. Harriet, who often heard Marion
sobbing behind the closed door of her room, had decided to find out.

She asked her,' When you get to England, where
will you go?' and was dismayed when Marion, her voice breaking, replied, 'I
don't know.' She told Harriet that her parents were in India and her husband
was expecting her to stay with his mother: 'But I know she doesn't want me.
She's only got a small flat and there'll be nowhere for Richard to play. I keep
asking myself, "Where will I go?" and I don't know. I don't know.'

'Why are you going at all?'

'It was Jim's idea. Richard's always unwell in
Iraq and he gets on Jim's nerves. The truth is, Jim
wanted
me to go.'

This confession had a fatal ring for Harriet
who, remembering it as she walked round the paths among the captive animals,
thought, 'They want to get rid of us.' The friend who had made all possible,
had deserted her. Left with an ailing woman, a complete stranger, who clung to
her simply because there was no one else, she wondered, 'What on earth will I
do with Marion all the way round the Cape and perhaps in England as well?'

She paused before one cage and another. The
animals, comatose in the afternoon heat, seemed content enough. Then she came
to a polar bear and stopped, appalled at finding an arctic animal in this
climate. The bear was in a circular cage, not very big, an island of concrete
surrounded by bars that rose up to a central dome from which water trickled
constantly. The bear, sitting motionless under the stream, hung its head,
torpid in its heavy white coat. Harriet felt, it was in despair and leaning
towards it, she whispered, 'Bear,' but it did not move. She was about to move
on but, unwilling to leave the creature unaided, she went closer to the cage
and stood for a long time, trying to contact the animal's senses through the
medium of her intense pity for it. It did not move. She knew she could not
stand there forever but before she went, she said aloud, 'If I could do anything
for you, I would do it with my whole heart. But the world is against us. All I
can do, is go away.'