by Emma Morgan
Friday, October 8, 2010 THE SUN
Accept no imitations! This is the only place to read about Stacey’s Blyth’s life, in extracts from her autobiography, Entitled. Today, Marrakech brings back some painful memories.
‘UNMASK-ERADE’
Someone has done some major alterations to Marrakech since I left.
There’s a McDonald’s!
The whole way from the airport, it just looks like anywhere, only warmer. So shops, restaurants, palm trees, maybe, but otherwise dead normal. Not exotic.
All the stuff I dreamt about, or remembered or whatever, doesn’t match. It’s like I made it all up, or someone told me about it and missed out loads of important stuff.
So I’m in a bad mood, all slumped down in the back seat of the car, then Chiara goes, ‘Koutoubia mosque!’
And I think, Big deal, there are mosques in London, but I look towards where she’s pointing and – bang! – it’s the tower I imagined, it’s real! And we get closer to the old part of the city and it’s exactly what I remembered, this run-down walled town.
I’m sitting up now and all excited and then the car turns away and I’m like, Where are we going – it was that way, so I’m looking back towards the market square but then we go round a corner and I’m about to lose my sh*t when I see the big pink walls and I shut up.
‘This is the Mamounia,’ says Chiara, opening her door.
And again, it’s exactly what I imagined, all tiled with fancy wooden screens and things and finally I think, Here I am. Home at last. And I wonder if they’ll recognise me but, to be fair, I’ve changed a bit over the past thirty-odd years, ha ha.
So Chiara goes to sign us in, only there’s been some problem with the rooms and they’re not ready. And she’s all pathetic, like, ‘Oh, don’t worry, we can wait,’ and I think, No way am I having this, so I go ‘That’s not good enough.’
And Chiara glares at me but the man behind the desk apologises and goes on his computer for a bit and then says the suites are all booked but we can have a riad if we like. For all I know, that means “tent”, and I’m not camping out, even though the gardens are well nice, if I remember rightly, but Chiara says, ‘That would be wonderful’ like he’s granted her a wish or something, so we take that. And it turns out a riad is like a cottage with its own pool, so actually it’s pretty amazing and not a tent, thank f***.
So we’re taken to the riad across the gardens, and they’re just like I remembered, it’s amazing. Really green and lush and I want to run around them like I’m a... well, not a baby. Or a toddler. What comes after that, a waddler? Whatever that is.
Then – get this – we get to the riad and again, it’s all like I remembered. All tiles and wood and cool and white and everything. And I really want to tell Chiara finally, to go, ‘I grew up here – sorry I didn’t mention it before but I wanted to check my facts,’ but she’s looking a bit knackered out from the early start and says she’s going for a siesta before dinner. And I think, They’re not called “siestas” here, but I don’t know what the Moroccan word for them is so I leave it.
So Chiara crashes out for a few hours and I flick channels and it’s like, This is one of the most exclusive hotels in the world and they’ve only got three English-language channels and two of them are business news – who wants that?
So, later, we head off for dinner, via the library, me wearing some old wrap dress of Chiara’s that I’ve tied as tight as I can but is still baggy, and she’s in a bit of a strop and I think it’s about me looking better in the dress than she ever did.
We get to the library and order drinks and when we’re alone she goes, ‘I can’t believe how rude you were!’
Totally out of the blue.
‘To who?’
‘To Hamid!’
And I have no idea who she’s talking about – maybe she’s having funny dreams.
But she goes, ‘On reception, the manager.’
And it turns out she’s stayed here a few times and he knows her and she’s all embarrassed and I think, He should be embarrassed if he couldn’t get you a good room until I said something, shouldn’t he?
I say, ‘I’m not apologising for demanding good service – for what you’re probably paying, you should be getting a palace, not wasting time waiting for them to polish up a poxy twin-bed.’
Then I worry that I’ve brought up money when I still haven’t got any, and that this is the point when Chiara goes, ‘How will you be paying me back, by the way?’ but instead, she laughs and goes, ‘You might be right. I should be more assertive. How very American of you. And the riad is amazing. Fine.’
Phew.
So our drinks come but ‘it’ll be a while yet’ for the table – what are they doing, building it? – so Chiara starts to look at the books on the shelves. She’s that bored. And I’m comparing my memories to the reality, aren’t I, then Chiara goes, ‘Look at this!’
And I’m about to go, ‘Read it to me, I don’t do books’ when she goes, ‘Party pictures – from 1975!’
She had me at ‘party pictures’, really, I love anything like that, it’s like homework for me, seeing how people stand and link arms and angle their faces and so on, but they’re old so I imagine we do stuff better these days. Our teeth are nicer, for starters.
Then I remember the Halloween invite.
‘No way, let’s see!’
So we sit at this desk and go through the pages together, and it’s all women in wafty clothes and men in suits – and even though all the pictures are in black and white you can tell they’re all a bit hot and pink.
We get towards the last few pages and suddenly the style of the clothes totally changes – everyone’s wearing costumes and masks and looking ridiculous.
My parents must be in here somewhere.
But we get called to dinner before we can find them.
‘Can we take it with us?’ I whisper to Chiara, who does bug eyes at me and goes ‘It’s not a lending library. We’ll have to come back.’
So we get to the restaurant, which is in another riad – which basically just means ‘house with a pool’ – and I order the first three courses I read but Chiara really umms and ahhs about it all, like it’s not going to end up the same way.
And she’s as bad when the food arrives, savouring every mouthful like she’s a judge on a cooking programme. I don’t care what you think, just eat it.
I mean, seriously, every mouthful. She has this rubbish-looking couscous thing with tangerines in it or something, and it’s so dull but she’s all ‘Oh, you have to taste this, it’s so great’. So I do, I chomp down everything she offers me to help clear her plates quicker, but still she draws the whole meal out like she’s about to be executed.
Don’t tempt me.
Finally, finally, she finishes her dessert and I’m all, ‘Can we go now, back to the library?’ and she looks at me like I’m insane and goes, ‘Now? It’s late, we’ll go tomorrow’, like, why do I care so much?
And maybe now is the time to confess... only the bill comes and they hand it to me to sign off and it’s so huge – for what was basically some vegetables and mousse – that I can’t speak and I push it to Chiara, and she signs it like it’s nothing.
Is that how I’ll be, if my mum was rich? We’ll see.
So we’re cutting across the gardens to our riad and I try one last time – we can see the Library from here and the light’s on and it’s obviously empty so why not?
And Chiara’s too tired to refuse me, so we take a detour and dig the book out again and skip to where we were.
I almost don’t want to turn the pages, in case we’ve already reached the last picture and they’re just empty pages after that or, worse still, there are pictures but my parents aren’t in them. But Chiara’s yawning so I get a wriggle on.
‘Such funny costumes,’ she says, blinking to stay awake as she turns the page. ‘Like this one, she looks like a ’30s film star or something...’
Oh. My. God.
&
nbsp; That’s my mother.
Not the one dressed as an actress or whatever, the one next to her. And on the other side was my father.
Only no-one but me would ever know – because of the masks.
I f***ing hated those horrible wooden goblin heads that hung in the hall.
But here they are and – voila! – so are my parents.
Then Chiara goes, ‘Do you know who that is?’
And I think, This is it, now’s the time to tell her.
So I start to go, ‘Well, yes, they’re my...’ only Chiara interrupts my big moment.
‘That’s Estella Dulac!’ she squeaks. Actually squeaks, she’s that excited.
Estella Dulac?
Chiara keeps repeating the name to herself, like it’s a question.
I go ‘Who?’ and she snaps out of it and looks at me like I’m an idiot.
‘The daughter of... she went missing? Around... around the time this was...’
Oh, thanks, that’s explained everything.
‘You must have seen a documentary about it?’
I shake my head and it turns into a yawn and then Chiara yawns and it’s like a competition about whose jaw can open widest. (I win.)
I don’t fancy dragging her back to the riad asleep so I quickly flick through the rest of the pages but that’s it, that one pic. So... I borrow it. Just for a while. Like, who else ever looks in those albums? No-one, I bet.
Chiara’s literally nodding off, so I unpeel the photo and slip it inside my dress, then put the album back on the shelf and go ‘Bedtime?’ loudly.
Chiara talks all chewy, like she’s drunk, ‘Shorry – long day, yessh, bedtime.’
So we get back to the riad and Chiara’s snoring before she’s even through her bedroom door, so I see if any so-called documentaries about this Estella are magically on right now. But they’re not. Just more boring business news. Who cares about oil?
So I go to bed too, and prop the picture of my parents and Estella Dulac up on the dressing table, only just as I’m getting into bed I think ‘The last thing I want to see when I wake up is those bloody awful masks,’ so instead I flop it face down and put a bottle of complementary body lotion on top but that doesn’t stop them getting out, and all I dream about that night is being chased by the wooden goblins and Marrakech is long gone.
IN MONDAY’S PAPER: ‘So my mum is African? Maybe my dad was an albino...’