by M. M. Kaye
The impression was only a fleeting one, and then the corners of her small mouth drooped childishly and once more the sense of wistfulness and fragility was back, and Mrs Norman was saying in her soft, apologetic voice: ‘I think after all that I will go and lie down for a while, George dear. I feel so tired. I’ll see you at dinner Julia—if I feel strong enough.’
She bestowed a faint smile upon Amanda, directed another at Toby Gates, tucked her small hand confidingly through her husband’s arm and moved gracefully away.
Julia Blaine sat staring after her in silence and Amanda saw with surprise that her face was colourless and her eyes wide and fixed and filled with something that looked uncommonly like fear. It was a disturbing expression, and Amanda tried to think of something light and casual to say that would break the spell of that uncomfortable silence. But before she could speak Mrs Blaine stood up, pushing her chair back so violently that it overturned on the thick carpet, and walked quickly out of the lounge.
The ship had sailed some ten minutes later, and Amanda and Toby had gone out on to the deck to watch the garish waterfront of Port Said with its blaze of flame trees slide past them, shimmering in the heat haze.
Feluccas with their squat prows and huge triangular sails drifted by among a clutter of shipping from almost every nation in the world: a British destroyer bound for Colombo and the Far East; oil tankers from England, America, Holland, France, Scandinavia; a P & O liner, white and glittering in the hot sunshine; a troopship returning from Singapore; a dhow from Dacca and a cargo boat from Brazil.
They passed the long stone mole where the statue of de Lesseps gazes out upon that narrow ribbon of water that is his memorial for all time. Beyond and far behind the green-bronze figure, a fleet of fishing boats lay motionless on the shallow waters that curve away towards Damietta and the Delta of the Nile, their sails ghostly in the haze. A cool breath of wind from the open sea blew gently across the sun-baked deck as the ship turned her bows towards Cyprus, and when the white roof-tops and garish domes of Port Said had vanished into the heat haze, Amanda went down to her cabin to wash off the dust of the journey from Fayid.
The long, white-painted ship’s corridor was hot and airless and smelt strongly of food, disinfectant, engine oil and that curious all-pervading and entirely individual smell of shipboard. A small but voluble group of people were standing halfway down the corridor and Mrs Blaine’s voice made itself heard above the babble:
‘I don’t care, you’ll just have to find me another cabin. I didn’t notice it before, or I would never have let you move my things in. I won’t sleep in there, and that’s all there is to it!’
Mrs Blaine, looking flushed and angry, pushed her way through the group and caught sight of Amanda.
‘Really, these people are impossible!’ she announced heatedly. ‘There must be dozens of other cabins!’
‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Amanda. ‘Is there something wrong with yours?’
‘Only the number,’ said Julia bitterly. ‘It’s thirteen. I won’t travel in it. I’d rather sleep on deck. It isn’t even as if the ship were full. Why it’s half empty! And it’s no good just saying that I’m superstitious. I am. Not about some things—like cats and ladders—but I am about thirteen.’
‘Well I’m not,’ said Amanda cheerfully. ‘I’ll swop with you if you like. They’ve given me a two-berth cabin all to myself.’
‘Would you? Would you really?’
‘Of course. I haven’t unpacked anything yet so it won’t take a minute. Mine’s fourteen—right next door to you.’
The stewardess, a cabin steward, a hovering Cypriot deck-hand and a man who was evidently the purser, expressed voluble relief, and the transfer was accomplished in a matter of minutes.
‘It’s very good of you,’ said Julia Blaine awkwardly, lingering in the doorway of her late cabin and speaking in a halting, difficult voice. ‘I know it sounds silly to be so superstitious, but–well I’ve wanted to get away from the heat and–and Fayid so badly, and I–I do so want this leave to be a success. But when I saw that number on the door it–it seemed like a bad omen, and I…’ Her voice trailed away and stopped.
Amanda smiled sympathetically at her, but Julia Blaine did not return the smile. She was not looking at Amanda. She was staring instead at her own reflection in the narrow strip of looking-glass behind Amanda’s head, and her plump, ageing face was once again white and frightened.
Amanda had tea in the lounge with Toby Gates, and when the sun had set in a blaze of gold and rose and amethyst and the sky was brilliant with stars, they had all dined in the saloon: Amanda, Toby, Julia and Alastair Blaine, the Normans and Persis Halliday.
The saloon was far from crowded and Amanda caught sight of the ginger-bearded painter of spiritual aromas dining at a small table with his companion of the afternoon, who had changed her linen suit for a short, strapless dinner dress of scarlet lace.
Amanda had exchanged one cotton frock for another, and Julia Blaine had not bothered to change at all. But Claire Norman was looking cool and ethereal in white chiffon and pearls, while Mrs Halliday, despite the heat, had elected to wear gold lamé and some astonishing emeralds. The glittering cloth brought out the gold lights in her copper hair and the emeralds turned her eyes to a clear, shining green. She looked stunning and knew it, and was amusing herself by flirting outrageously with George Norman.
Alastair Blaine was sitting next to Amanda, but Claire Norman, seated on his right, monopolized most of his attention, and for once Julia’s acid tongue was silent. She was watching her husband and Claire Norman with a furtive and almost frightened intentness, but if Alastair was aware of this he certainly paid no attention to it. Major Blaine, for the first time since Amanda had known him, appeared to be the better—or worse—for drink. His face was unnaturally flushed and his blue eyes overbright, and he appeared to be slurring his words a little.
They were half-way through the meal when Claire leant across and spoke to Amanda:
‘Alastair tells me that you’ve never been to Cyprus before, Amanda?—I may call you Amanda, mayn’t I? Are you staying long?’
‘Only ten days,’ said Amanda regretfully. ‘It doesn’t seem nearly long enough. Ten days is such a little time.’
‘Oh, but it’s a very little Island. Where are you staying? In Kyrenia?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. I’d much rather have stayed somewhere near the sea, but my uncle arranged for me to stay with some people in Nicosia.’
‘Army people I suppose. They’re nearly all stuck in Nicosia, poor things.’
Amanda shook her head. ‘No. They’re something to do with wine. People called Barton.’
‘Barton! You can’t mean Glenn Barton?’
‘Yes, I think that must be it. Glennister Barton. Do you know them?’
‘Yes, of course I know them; but you can’t possibly be staying at the Villa Sosis. Why____’ She stopped suddenly and bit her lip.
‘But I am staying with them,’ said Amanda with a laugh. ‘Did you think they were away?’
‘No. I mean____’ Once more Claire Norman did not finish the sentence. She laughed instead; a light tinkling laugh that somehow gave Amanda the impression that she was both disturbed and angry. ‘Oh well—we shall see. It will be very interesting. But personally I should have thought that Glenn would have had more respect for the convention. He is such a stickler for propriety.’
With which cryptic remark she turned her attention to Toby Gates, and Amanda had no further opportunity of reopening the subject, for it was at that point that the artistic Mr Potter and his companion rose to leave the dining saloon and paused beside their table. Amanda, looking round, saw the painter pull at the woman’s arm as though he would have hurried her past, but she disengaged herself deliberately and spoke in a clear high voice:
‘Hullo Claire. Hullo Mrs Blaine. Alastair!—fancy seeing you here again!’
Alastair Blaine stood up quickly. He was swaying a little. ‘Hullo Anita.
What are you doing here?’
‘As if you didn’t know!’ mocked Mr Potter’s companion. ‘However if you don’t, you soon will. Claire will see to that. Won’t you, Claire?’
Claire Norman stiffened where she sat. She turned slowly and it seemed a full minute before she spoke:
‘Hullo Anita. I’m not sure that I expected to see you here either. I should have thought____’ She broke off with a shrug of her white shoulders and gave her tinkling little laugh: ‘Oh well, it’s no concern of mine, is it? Hullo Lumley. You remember Major and Mrs Blaine, don’t you?’
She made no attempt to introduce the woman she had addressed as Anita, but turned instead to the three men at her own table: ‘Do sit down, darlings. There’s no need for you to stand around while your food gets cold. They’re just going.’
Mr Potter’s face, which had acquired a fiery glow that reduced his beard to luke-warm proportions, turned an even richer shade of puce and he said hurriedly: ‘Yes, we–we were going on deck. Come on Anita.’ He grabbed his companion’s arm and almost dragged her from the dining-room.
‘Say, who was that dame?’ inquired Persis, interested.
‘Just someone we have the misfortune to know,’ said Claire in a small, cold voice, and instantly changed the subject.
Persis raised her eyebrows but did not press the question. And presently they left the table and went up to drink coffee in the lounge, and later someone turned on a gramophone and they danced on deck under a blaze of stars.
It was almost eleven o’clock by the time Amanda went down to bed, and except for a passing Cypriot deck-hand the long brightly lit corridor was silent and deserted. Her cabin was hot and stuffy after the cool night air on deck and she was pleasantly surprised to see that a thoughtful stewardess had placed a brimming frosted glass, with ice and a long strip of lemon peel floating in it, on a small stool near her berth. A moment or two later she realized that the drink must have been ordered by Julia, and placed in error in the cabin that Julia should have been occupying: she would have to take it in to her, but as she had already removed her dress it could wait until she was ready for bed. She put on a thin silk nightdress, washed in cold water and removing the pins from her hair, brushed out its long, shining length.
Amanda’s hair—a deep golden brown with glints in it the colour of the first chestnuts in September—was a glorious anachronism. In the sunlight there were other colours in it too; purple and green and bronze; and it fell far below her slim waist in a rippling, glinting cloak that might well have rivalled Montezuma’s fabled cloak of feathers. Yet as she brushed it she regretted—not for the first time since the advent of the hot weather—that she could not summon up the moral courage to defy her uncle and chop it off.
But Oswin Derington did not approve of short hair for women, and although Amanda was now of age and had demonstrated her independence in a drastic manner, the habit of years made her shrink from the prospect of Uncle Oswin’s scandalized wrath should she cut off what he persisted in referring to as ‘Woman’s Crowning Glory’.
Amanda sighed and rummaged in her suitcase for a length of ribbon with which to tie it back, and she was pulling the bow tight when the door of the cabin burst open without any preliminary knock to disclose Julia Blaine, arrayed in a pink satin dressing-gown liberally trimmed with lace, a tight pink satin nightdress and feathered mules.
Mrs Blaine banged the door shut behind her and subsided heavily on the end of Amanda’s berth. She was trembling violently and her teeth chattered as though she were cold.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Amanda sharply; appalled by the sight of the older woman’s ravaged face. ‘Are you ill? Shall I call the stewardess?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Blaine hoarsely. ‘It’s–it’s Alastair____’
‘Alastair? You mean he’s ill?’
‘No. But he hasn’t come to bed. He–he was dancing to that gramophone, and I told him that I wasn’t feeling well and would have to go to bed, but he wouldn’t come with me. He wouldn’t even come as far as the cabin with me! He said I could find the way myself. I waited and waited; and then I sent the stewardess to tell him to come as I was feeling very unwell, and he–he sent back to say that I’d better take an aspirin and that he couldn’t come just now. Couldn’t come…! It’s that woman! I should have known it. I’ve always known that this would happen one day. Alastair … Alastair…!’
She broke into gulping, hysterical sobs.
‘Mrs Blaine,’ said Amanda gently, ‘don’t you think you’d better go back to your cabin and lie down? You shouldn’t say these things to me—really you shouldn’t. You’ll feel quite differently about it in the morning. It’s only because it’s been a hot, tiring day that you’re feeling upset. You don’t really mean it. Do lie down.’
But Julia Blaine was beyond the reach of reason. She had to talk, and if it had not been to Amanda it would have been to someone else—anyone else—the stewardess, or a stranger.
She said violently: ‘I shall say it! I do mean it! I shall tell everyone. Everyone! I’ve always known that he’d leave me one day. I’ve felt it; here____’
She struck her billowing breasts with her clenched fists, while the tears poured down her plump, faded cheeks:
‘Only he couldn’t leave me! I had the money and he needed that. He might have managed in an Indian cavalry regiment, but when he had to transfer into a British one he had to have money. And I had more than the others. A lot more. There might have been prettier women, and younger and–and slimmer ones, like Anita, but they couldn’t give him the horses and cars and comforts that I could. But now it’s different. That American woman. She’s rich. You saw those emeralds! They must have cost a fortune. And Claire—it isn’t George’s money. It’s Claire’s. That’s why George has to stay in Cyprus. He hates it—he’s always hated it. But if he left her he wouldn’t have a penny, and he’s grown used to doing nothing. When she got him to give up the Army she told him that they’d buy a farm in England. But she didn’t; and he hadn’t even qualified for a pension. She’s got him where she wants him. But I didn’t realize that she wanted Alastair. He can’t do this to me!—he can’t!’
She wept noisily, rocking her stout body to and fro, and Amanda sat down beside her and put her arms about the fat, satin-clad shoulders, wondering desperately what she could say to comfort this hysterical, despairing woman.
‘I’m–I’m sure you must be imagining it,’ said Amanda helplessly.
‘I know him and you don’t,’ sobbed Julia, ‘and I’ve never known him to behave like this before. But she shan’t have him! I’ll kill myself first! I’d be better dead than having to go through all this–this awful agony.’
Amanda began to wonder if she ought not to ring the bell for the stewardess and ask for sedatives or the ship’s doctor. She said anxiously: ‘Wouldn’t you like a–an aspirin or something?’
Mrs Blaine turned her head slowly and looked at Amanda as though she was awakening from a deep sleep or an anaesthetic. Her blotched and tear-disfigured face coloured a slow, ugly red and she jerked herself free of Amanda’s arm and stood up abruptly:
‘That’s what Alastair said. He said to take some aspirin. The stewardess brought me some. The one who–who brought me the message.’
She opened her hot, plump hand to show two small white tablets that were already beginning to crumble.
Amanda said: ‘You take those and get into bed. They’ll make you sleep, and you’ll feel much better in the morning.’
‘Yes,’ said Julia slowly. ‘Perhaps it’s the heat. I always feel so dreadful in the heat. It’s horrible, having to live so much in the East. I’ve always hated Army life … but Alastair likes it. Perhaps if I sleep…’
She put the tablets into her mouth and reached out one plump be-ringed hand for the glass that stood beside the berth. The diamonds on her fingers winked and sparkled in the light of the ceiling bulbs as she lifted it to her lips and drank deeply.
She made a wry grimace and dr
ank again, swaying a little as she stood, and presently said in a harsh whisper: ‘I’ve been a fool. I should never have let him go back to Cyprus. But I never suspected … Claire’s too clever. We stayed with them last year, you know. And then they came and stayed with us, and we all spent Christmas and New Year together in Alex. He never seemed to pay any special attention to her. He–he always said that he didn’t like little women. But tonight–tonight____’
She swayed again and put up a hand, catching at the edge of the upper berth to steady herself. Holding it, she drew herself erect and said in a voice that was no longer trembling with hysteria but cold and venomous: ‘Well he can’t divorce me! And I’ll never divorce him. Never! He knows that. I’d kill myself first—I’d kill myself!’
She clung to the edge of the berth, breathing stertorously and shivering, her eyes staring blindly across the small cabin. There were great beads of sweat on her forehead that trickled down and mingled with the tears that smeared her cheeks, and the silence in the cabin, broken only by the sound of her hoarse panting breath, began to grow oppressive.
Amanda watched her anxiously and presently said: ‘Do go to bed. You’re only upsetting yourself. I’m sure your husband will be along soon.’
Julia Blaine looked at her as though she did not know who she was or could not focus her, and lifting the glass that she still held, drank again, thirstily.
A minute or two later she suddenly swayed and staggered and seemed to gasp for air, and releasing her hold on the berth, doubled up, retching; her face suffused and her eyes starting from her head.
The glass dropped from her hand and rolled on its side, spilling what little remained of its contents on to the floor in a scatter of melting ice, and Julia gave a curious, choking cry and fell forward to sprawl face downwards on the narrow cabin floor.
3
She’s fainted, thought Amanda frantically. What on earth does one do for a faint? Oh, bother the woman!