‘Have a good ride?’ I asked.
‘Mmmm. Even I found it a bit too hot.’
Our fingers locked as we lay inert as a pair of effigies on a crusader’s tomb; greater contact than that would have been unthinkable in the stifling gloom of the room.
‘I love you, Jon,’ she said a little later.
‘And I you,’ I responded.
‘That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?’
I agreed drowsily.
For a moment I thought she had drifted into sleep but then she said, ‘Last night, when you were talking about what happened when you were a boy … you didn’t tell me why you thought your mother’s death was not an accident. I thought maybe you felt you’d said enough, and then I found you’d drifted off to sleep.’
She was right. I had not wanted to talk about it any further then and had feigned sleep, which soon became real enough. Now I felt able to go on. ‘What my father did not realize when he told me what had happened was that at the time Mia was asleep on the foot of my bed.’
‘But why should she want to do away with herself? You told me how cheerful and religious she was.’
‘I don’t know, Ash, and I don’t suppose I ever shall.’
‘What happened to you and your father?’
‘I was sent to be looked after by my Aunt Elizabeth in London. My father used to make efforts to visit me at first — take me to Madame Tussaud’s and so on — but Mother’s death had come between us like a sheet of plate glass. We were so bloody nice to each other. Later he went to live in Canada. He married again and I believe his new wife got him off the booze — he’d become a very dignified drunk. He writes to me twice a year, Christmas and birthday, but they’re letters from a stranger. Sometimes I feel I should make an effort and go over and see him — take Steve with me to meet his grandfather — but there’s always been a valid reason to put it off until next year.’
‘You don’t really want to see him, do you?’
‘No. He’s part of the past — like being an altar boy.’
‘Do you blame him in some way for your mother’s death?’
‘I don’t know. It was all long ago.’
Her fingers tightened on mine. ‘I just want you to know, Jon, how much you have done for me,’ she said.
I felt genuine surprise. I had fallen in love with her and hoped it was a mutual reaction, but I was not conscious of having done anything for her.
‘I guess you may not have realized it, but I was pretty emotionally mauled when I came to Whispering Corner. You made everything right for me. You gave me my confidence back, you made me heartwhole, to use an old-fashioned word, and you gave me the gift of love. Thanks to you I’m living again, and I doubt if a younger man could have done that.’
Ashley’s words brought me a sense of deep satisfaction as we drifted towards sleep, so it was odd that by the time I heard her give a gentle snore my thoughts had turned to Pamela. I told myself that I must find out if it was possible to send a cable of congratulation on the advertisement I had seen in Voyageur.
*
‘Are you going riding today?’ I asked Ashley when I carried coffee into our bedroom the next morning.
‘Not today, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘I’ve still got a headache from yesterday. The sun was so fierce when we were riding along the beach. Mad dogs and Kiwis — I suppose. I’m going to stay in the shade all day. Wish you’d let me read what you’ve written.’
‘When it’s finished and corrected,’ I said. A few minutes later I looked out to see a column of dust approaching, then a land rover appeared through the carob trees with Syed at the wheel and his bodyguard sitting in the back scat.
‘Good morning, Jonathan,’ he called as he skidded to a halt. ‘Can I lure you away from your typewriter? I have a free day and I would like to take you and Ashley sightseeing. Remember that crusader castle I told you about the other night? How about a trip out there?’
‘I’d be delighted,’ I said. ‘But I doubt if Ashley would feel like the journey. Although she’s used to the sun down under it’s been a bit too much for her here.’
Syed was immediately concerned for her welfare, offering the services of his personal doctor, until Ashley appeared and reassured him that she was suffering from nothing worse than a throbbing head.
A few minutes later I was seated beside him in the Land Rover, lurching along the track towards the Abdulla Highway — named after Syed’s redoubtable father, the last king of Abu Sabbah to keep a harem.
‘Apologies for the autoroute,’ said the king as he deftly piloted us round a flock of goats. ‘Aid for motorway construction evaporated when it was realized we had no oil potential.’
Here and there the monotony of the landscape was broken by whitewashed houses set amid patches of cultivation irrigated by waterwheels powered by yoked donkeys plodding in never-ending circles. Youths in grimy jellabas shepherding goats waved at us when they recognized the royal leopard insignia on the land rover and were rewarded for their loyalty by being enveloped in a dun cloud of dust. Once I saw a string of camels swaying over sand dunes like an Old Testament illustration come to life, and I wished that I had a camera.
We followed the road westward into desert country. Ahead a range of lion-hued mountains crouched like a pride of the beasts and Syed expertly steered the Land Rover along the track which had begun to switchback over dunes, the beginning of the great sand sea which rolled westward into Africa. Soon we were vibrating in low gear along the wadi which led us into the magnificent Valley of the Jinn. In parts the walls were close together, towering almost vertically for hundreds of feet; elsewhere they widened so that there were broad drifts of white sand glittering between them. Syed was continually telling me the local legends and pointing out places where the winds had carved surreal sculptures from the living rock. Some formations rose like chimneys against the brassy sky; others were stone ‘waterfalls’ eternally flowing down the cliffs in petrified cascades, and others again took on the forms of mythical beasts or fairy-tale palaces. The rock had the added attraction of being multi-hued; the predominating tone being a warm honey colour shot with pink and white strata.
If I found the valley impressive it was nothing to the impact I felt when our vehicle finally crawled round a bend and I beheld, crouched high on a gigantic rock buttress, a fortress whose curtain wall and towering keep menaced the narrow pass below. Its walls of pale yellow stone were crenelated and pierced for arrow fire, and it was obvious that whoever had held it would have controlled the caravan route. A dizzy path, hewn in the valley wall, led up to an empty gateway set between twin towers.
‘Now we must walk,’ said Syed, switching off the engine and putting to rest the echoes which had reverberated along the valley.
The climb to the castle was exhausting in the heat, and I wondered how crusaders wearing armour had managed to stand up to such conditions.
For the next hour we explored the castle and made a picnic lunch of dates, bread and kebabs which the bodyguard cooked over a charcoal brazier. The food was wholesome — what Syed called peasant fare — but ‘to make amends for its simplicity’ a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild was produced. The king talked enthusiastically about his college, now half-constructed, where he would take me tomorrow. He repeated his hope that I would agree to head the English department for the first year, and casually mentioned a tax-free salary which startled me. If all else failed a year’s work out here could give me a chance to do a deal with the Regent Bank and thus keep Whispering Corner.
From our vantage point we had a fine view of the desert hinterland and the green coastal strip with the sapphire sea beyond, and while Syed pointed out various aspects of his tiny kingdom the wine and the atmosphere of this unique place, coupled with the thought of Ashley waiting for me at the bungalow, gave me a wonderful sense of well-being. Those whom the gods destroy they first make glad.
17
As we approached the airport on our return journey the s
hadow of evening descended upon the land. Behind us the lion mountains were briefly transmuted to gold as they caught the final rays of the sun. Riding the thunder of its Pratt and Whitney engines the 707 of the Royal Abu Sabbah Airline hauled itself into a sky of mauve and flame and made a lazy circle before heading towards Cairo.
When we reached the palace the king discussed arrangements for tomorrow’s visit to the college site and then detailed a driver to take me on to the bungalow. I still had my sense of well-being and I was eagerly looking forward to regaling Ashley with the stories Syed had told me about the Valley of the Jinn and the Crusader castle.
‘Fi aman Illah,’ said the driver when he drew up in front of the house. I responded and went inside, at first surprised that the place was in darkness until I remembered that Ashley liked to sit in the tropical gloaming.
‘Ash,’ I called, expecting an answer from the terrace where she was no doubt looking out over the dark water with a drink in her hand.
When there was no response I looked out on the terrace and saw that it was empty; I went into our bedroom but no figure lay on the bed, and the other rooms were equally deserted. A burst of Arabic music led me to the kitchen and when I switched on the light
I saw the maid hunched at the table in front of a transistor radio.
‘Ashley?’ I demanded.
‘She gone,’ the girl said.
‘What the hell d’you mean — she gone?’
She shrugged.
‘Take bag — gone.’
‘To the palace?’
Another shrug.
‘How did she go — on a horse?’
‘On Houri. She angry.’
I ran back to the bedroom and snapped on the light which wavered in time to the capriciousness of the generator. Both Ashley’s shoulder bag and her suitcase were missing, and when I flung open the louvred door of the wardrobe I saw that apart from a damp swimsuit bundled on the floor all her clothes had gone.
A new apprehension gripped me and I hastily looked round the room for a note pinned up where I would see it, or laid on my pillow. Nothing. I went back to the kitchen.
‘Ashley, did she write me a letter?’
‘She use your writing machine. I hear her. Clack, clack, clack.’
I hurried to the table where I worked. Part of the typescript which I kept beside the Olympia was scattered on the floor, but what caught my attention was the sheet of paper in the machine. I tore it out and a few seconds later my fear was confirmed. Ashley had left me.
‘Dear Jonathan Northrop,’ I read. ‘It seems I have a lot in common with Bluebeard’s last wife …’
The single-spaced typing was that of someone in a great hurry or under stress; words ran together and there was much x-ing out which only added to the impact that it had upon me.
‘I still can hardly believe what I read when I disobeyed you about reading your manuscript — something I did because I felt I loved you so much and was hungry to know everything about you and what you were writing, so that I could understand you better and share your problems.
‘How bloody naive I am!!!!
‘It must have been fate which made the pile of paper open at page 137 where your Falco has it off with dear old Lorna who just happens to be his guest at Whispering Corner … only it was Jonathan having it off with dear old Ashley who also happened to be your unexpected guest at Whispering Corner.
‘At first I was horrified that you should describe in detail that night, which meant so much to me, in a book for everyone to read. And then the penny dropped. I realize I have been nothing more than a provider of “copy” for you. And how well you kidded me along, and how you must have laughed to yourself as you watched me through a magnifying glass and arranged scenes which you could type up the next day. I suppose you call it research! At least it was interesting to read how I screw from the Great Author’s standpoint!!!!!
‘But how could you be so hypocritical? To pretend all you did to get responses from me because your imagination has dried up — or have you always used unsuspecting people to provide you with characters???
‘At least like Bluebeard’s wife I now know where I stand.
‘I may have been too eager to fall in love with you, but at least I have enough self-respect to stop being a model for your bloody Lorna. I am leaving on today’s flight and we will not meet again. No doubt this parting will provide you with a good scene for your story.’
I re-read the page and then looked at the typescript which Ashley had read, and sure enough the text on the top page began the description of the night when Falco and Lorna made love for the first time.
‘You silly bitch!’ I cried in anger. ‘Why the hell didn’t you wait for me to explain?’
To explain that the scene which had so shocked her had been written while she was in the cottage hospital, days before it was agreed that she should stay at Whispering Corner; to explain that then it never occurred to me that such intimacy as my characters enjoyed would ever take place between us, and that in this case life had followed art, not art mirrored life.
I should have locked the damn typescript away. But that would have looked as though I mistrusted her, an unthinkable thing to do.
For a moment the hope struck me that she might not have left Abu Sabbah but have gone to seek solace with Jo at the palace. I dashed to the bedroom and wrenched open the drawer into which we had tossed our passports and air tickets on arrival. But Ashley’s passport and ticket were gone and I knew that my hope had been born of desperation. Ashley would never play games; there could be no doubt that she was aboard the aircraft which I had watched shrink into the sunset sky.
I sat on the bed and for a couple of minutes my eyes were dangerously close to spilling. My indignation that Ashley had read the manuscript against my wishes and drawn the wrong conclusion was replaced by an overwhelming sense of loss. Since I had fallen in love with her she had become part of my life. I had seen us going into the future together. I had believed that some generous destiny was about to make up for what I had missed during the long years of my marriage — and now, nothing!
As I sat in that hot room with a swarm of insects swirling about the light bulb and cicadas chirking from the carobs I was engulfed by a wave of utter loneliness. Then my eyes did spill over.
*
‘Please. You wake. The king. Please.’
The maid’s words dragged me back from blessed oblivion just as it seemed I had entered it.
‘Please. Very little time.’
I opened one eye and was amazed at the intensity of the midday light streaming through the window.
‘Driver in hurry,’ she continued as I hastily closed it again. ‘You have to meet King Syed.’
I remembered that today Syed wanted to take me to his college site, but it would be impossible. Half a bottle of brandy last night had proved too much for even my seasoned frame.
I shook my head, then regretted it.
‘Please. Driver must hurry or he get trouble. You get up. OK?’
A thought began to form. If I was to accept Syed’s offer and the release from financial pressure that went with it, I should cooperate when he was eager to show me the project that was so dear to his heart. To turn down his invitation on account of a hangover would be not only churlish but stupid.
Luckily the maid must have had experience of others in the guest house who had looked on the wine when it was red. She proffered a glass of water in which ice cubes tinkled thunderously.
First I would deal with dehydration and then search for the painkillers which Ashley had been using since her accident. The maid brought another glass, and I carefully put my legs over the side of the bed and thrust myself into a sitting position. For a moment I had the sensation one experiences when a yacht heels into the wind, and then when everything had steadied again I said, ‘Tell the driver I’ll be ready in ten minutes. OK?’
‘OK. Coffee OK?’
‘OK.’
Feeling very un-OK I dragg
ed myself to the bathroom where I showered and shaved in tepid water and then pulled on fresh clothing with quivering hands. Strong Arabian coffee helped to steady them and I managed to make it to where the Rolls waited in the sparse shade of the carob trees.
As soon as I was inside and savouring the air-conditioning the driver accelerated away in the direction of the Abdulla Highway, and while he swung the great car round flocks and caravans fragments of the previous night returned … the disturbed typescript by my Olympia, the half bottle of Courvoisier I had drunk to dull the pain, Ashley’s letter full of indignant exclamation marks.
My morbid introspection was halted as the car pulled up within the crenelated courtyard of the palace. I climbed out, very slowly, as a line of olive-uniformed guards presented their old bolt-action rifles. Then the slapping of hands on stocks heralded the appearance of Syed, who looked rather Ruritanian in a military uniform. Jo followed him down the stairs from the royal apartments, and greeted me coldly.
‘Off we go,’ the king said. ‘I’m dying for you to see the progress we’ve made. We’re going to have the dedication ceremony today, which is why I’m so pleased that you’re here. Sorry Ashley won’t be with us. Jo told me … but you two will get together again insh’allah.’
Jo’s expression told me that she did not share the king’s optimism. Ash had obviously confided in her before she left.
With an outrider on a Triumph motorcycle — a collector’s item in Britain — leading the way, and a jeep with a mounted machine-gun shadowing us, the Rolls left the palace and threaded its way through narrow streets and bustling squares to the port, where sea-going dhows and fishing vessels clustered at the quay or lazily chafed at their moorings. Here we turned and followed a coast road to a low headland where a collection of half-finished buildings reared against the sky.
‘You see, I have placed my college on the most pleasant vantage point in the kingdom,’ said Syed. ‘What views my lecturers and students will enjoy. Broad vistas encourage mental expansion.’
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