‘I can’t. I never learned.’
‘You will out here. It’s one of the substitution therapies the services dreamed up to take our minds off each other. Everyone learns to swim; has to. Even you.’
‘That’ll be the day.’
‘Bet you. Bet you a fiver?’
‘That I learn to swim? That’s not fair on you. All I have to do is avoid it.’
‘I still bet you.’
‘OK.’ We shook on it.
‘At least come in the pool, and wash away that awful perspiration – you smell like a brewery.’
I wasn’t sure that the families around us would have given me top marks for hygiene, but I complied. Susan swam a slow breaststroke; each time her arms thrust forward, her head sank beneath the surface and then popped up again like a seal’s. I stayed at the shallow end hanging with my arms along the bar. Each time she came back to me she paused before the turn, and held her body touching mine. I got a hard on, of course, and she knew it. What had she warned me about? We are all stir-crazy here. Something like that.
‘You’re a horrible flirt,’ I told her. ‘You’re just trying to embarrass me.’
‘Am I, Charlie?’ Her voice sounded very close to me.
‘Everyone can see us.’
‘. . . and so they know that nothing is really happening. Not in front of the kids, anyway. All the women know that I’m only ever going to tease you, while the men misread my intentions and are jealous. They’ll hate you.’ It was more like torture than tease. Then she turned, and did another couple of lengths. I had to wait on for five minutes in the pool after she climbed out, and she was rubbing her hair dry as I walked back.
I asked her, ‘Do you want me to do that?’
She laughed. ‘You really don’t get it, do you, Charlie? Then they would know something was going on.’
‘But it isn’t.’
She laughed again. ‘You need some lessons. I’ll round up the Lost Wives’ Club to teach you.’
‘Did your fellah come back?’
‘Yes. Now he’s gone away again.’
My headache was lifting, and I fancied a beer again. Maybe that’s why I asked, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to sleep with me?’
She said, ‘Almost,’ and giggled. It was almost like her brushing up against me in the pool.
‘I’m going to get us a couple of beers then.’
She nodded, turned on her stomach, and pulled a big straw hat over the back of her head.
I took that as a yes. For the beer, that is.
Up at the bar I found myself alongside a man who’d nearly killed me. The Port Said doctor was smoking a large cigar, and had a self-satisfied look on his face. So would I with seven or eight empties lined up in front of me.
I greeted him, ‘Hiya, Doc. Who’ve you come to poison today?’
‘That was almost funny,’ he responded. ‘For some reason everyone’s greeting me with the phrase What’s up, Doc? this month, and then breaking into peals of laughter as if I was a bloody comedian. What d’ye think it means?’
‘Probably that they’ve seen a film you haven’t. I wouldn’t worry about it. Can I get you a drink?’
‘I like patients who buy me a drink; it restores my faith in medicine.’
‘Do you have a regular clinic down here, or are you in danger of losing another patient?’
‘Neither. Autopsy. Some poor sod got himself murdered again last night.’ I ran the words in my head, and felt that maybe someone who managed to get murdered again had cracked the secret of eternal life.
‘Who?’
‘A Kiwi who missed his last bus – in more ways than one. Fancy spending the last night of your life in a bloody NAAFI – too depressing for words.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Gyppoes, my boss tells me: they’re getting worse every day. They broke his neck with a heavy blow, and then defaced his body. The Chief Medical Officer says it was intended to make it look like a ritual killing.’
‘How?’
‘There were groups of parallel slashes on his shoulders and back. Four at a time. I told him I’d seen something like that before – on an animal out in Iraq, which had been attacked by another animal – and he told me to bugger off. So I did. Now I’m going to get drunk.’
‘You think it was something else?’
‘No old boy; I don’t. Not allowed to think. We’re in the Army now.’ He drew a finger across his lips in a zipping motion, and then tried a shaky salute. For a moment it looked as if he would fall over. I steadied him. ‘Thanks; think I shall toddle off for a slash myself. Toodle-oo.’ It must have been the word association that triggered his need.
Outside I asked Haye with an e, ‘Did you hear that someone was killed last night?’
‘Drunk, and lost in the Arab quarter; what do you expect? Thanks for the beer by the way.’ I rested my beer bottle on the small of her back. She said, ‘Oh, that’s lovely.’
‘I want to put my hand on your bum.’
‘If you do I’ll creep up on you in the night with a scalpel, and cut it off.’
‘My hand?’
‘That too. Go back in the pool and cool off.’ Yes ma’am.
She had come down to Ismailia for a weekly early-morning clinic, but had the rest of the day off. When I asked her what the clinic was for, she had replied spontaneous pregnancies, and VD. I didn’t ask any more.
Late afternoon, she borrowed my room in which to shower and change. I didn’t follow her there, and I don’t expect she was disappointed. When she brought me back my key she was every bit a foot soldier of the Grey Mafia again. If anything, I fancied her even more in uniform, but that’s the way it goes . . . You lose some, and you lose some.
That is probably why I was back in the Blue Kettle on my own an hour later.
It was empty. Which is probably why I tried a bit of bad poetry, doodling on the beer mat up at the bar.
’twas empty,
and the Arab girls did twist and tumble like the wave.
But there were no Arab girls either.
There were four-bladed fans on the ceilings. They beat slowly to the rhythm of a New Orleans funeral band. There were flies too. They circled like a squadron of Stukas, spiralling down to feed from the sweat on the back of your neck if you turned your back on them. There was a barman with a flyswat who did his best . . . and his best was far from good enough. He moved like a sleepwalker. The room had the smell of all bars before you are too drunk to notice: disinfectant, stale cigarettes, spilled drinks and last year’s perfume. The disinfectant smelled a livid yellow – the colour of strong urine. The perfume was a ghostly violet. If you need to be told the colour of the smell of stale cigarettes you’ve been living on the wrong planet for a few years: it’s the colour of cancer.
And the joint wasn’t completely empty either. A big man detached himself from a table in one of the shadowy alcoves. He nodded to the bar boy, who reached for another beer from the cold box. This man had a round, olive-coloured face with a small black beard and moustache, a tailored linen suit in need of a dhobi, and an ancient fez on his head. He had six inches on me, but was twice as broad. In fact he probably weighed as much as three of me. He wiped his hand on a handkerchief before offering it to me.
Glancing at my effort on the beer mat he observed, ‘Ah, an English poet.’
‘Hardly. Just a bored Englishman doing a bit of scribbling.’
‘The first word in your first line is incorrect, I think.’
‘Yes?’ I recognized that he was a chancer, but at least he was trying. He made me smile.
‘It should be twat. Soldiers, and even the RAF, come here looking for a bit of twat, not ’twas.’ He laughed as if he had made a joke.
‘Twat?’
‘Yes: an old word. It means cunt: vagina. Woman. You are looking for a woman.’
‘The place was full of them last night.’
‘That was before your unfortunate colleague went to meet our maker. This
is the notorious Blue Kettle, after all. Every time something bad happens in Ismailia your Military Police close us down.’
‘For how long?’
He shrugged and smiled, as if the answer was of no account, ‘Two weeks; three . . . who knows? Until a visiting colonel wants a dancing girl, and then we are miraculously safe again, and open for business.’
Another bottle had appeared before me. I hadn’t even noticed the bar boy move. How did he do that?
‘How did he do that?’ I asked the fat man. ‘How did he serve me a beer without my seeing it?’
‘Who knows?’ he said again. ‘It is a mystery.’ I liked the way he shrugged. It was as if he was denying responsibility for something.
‘Everybody’s always saying that to me.’
‘That is because Egypt is a mysterious country. Shall we sit down? My feet are hurting.’ We sat at a small round table under a fan. You’ve seen round tables like it in bars all over the world. Were they created for bars; or were bars created as places to accommodate round tables? If I asked anyone here that question I knew the answer I would receive. As soon as we were seated, the boy came around the bar, and brought us another two beers. This time I saw him move.
We rattled the bottles together. I said, ‘Cheerio.’
The fat man said, ‘L’chaim.’
‘What language is that?’
‘Israeli.’
‘Your English is also very good.’
‘And we are very fortunate, because your Arabic is . . . ?’
‘Non-existent, or shite, as my Scottish friends would say. I was hoping to find a girl to teach me a little tonight.’
‘Did you have a particular girl in mind?’
‘One was called Yasmin.’
‘No good: most of them are called Yasmin.’
‘She is a dancer.’
‘Also no good. Here they are all dancers.’
‘She is small. Very small. Smaller than me.’
‘. . . a child?’ I wasn’t too struck with the note of relish in his voice here.
‘No, of course not. Older. Maybe nineteen or twenty.’
‘Then maybe I know her. I will ask for her to be sent to you.’ He barked an imperious string of gobbledegook at the barman, who in turn barked it into a telephone behind the bar. He then beamed at the fat man, and the fat man beamed at me. I should have picked up on it earlier.
‘You own this place, don’t you?’
He shrugged his exaggerated shrug, smiled a trader’s smile and spread his hands. ‘Only partly.’ He swallowed most of the beer from his bottle in a oner, and clicked his fingers for another.
‘Somebody I met told me that one reason the Egyptians want us out is that we show no respect for your traditional Muslim values. One of those values is refraining from drinking alcohol . . . and yet, here you are, drinking beer with me. Curious.’
He leaned forward to pat me on the shoulder like you would an old friend. He actually laughed aloud.
Then said, ‘So: I cannot be a Muslim, can I? I am Lebanese, Mr Bassett, and a Christian. I am David Yassine.’ Bollocks: the bugger had called me by name. He must have seen my face. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Bassett. All my girls are good Christians also; you are among friends here. Welcome to the Blue Kettle.’
He took me up polished white stone stairs to a large room that overlooked the bar through a huge arched pane of glass.
He said, ‘Don’t worry. It is mirrored glass. You can see out, but no one can see in. Once we are dealing with each other again, your wonderful Military Police will come up here and film men downstairs with the girls.’
I had a thought. ‘Were they here last night?’
‘No; and I shouldn’t have let them film you if they had been.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you are a friend.’
The conversation faltered for a second. ‘I was going to ask you about that. How come you know my name?’
‘I knew it twice, Mr Bassett . . .’
‘You may as well call me Charlie; everyone else does.’
‘Charlie; thank you . . . I knew it twice, Charlie: once by accident almost, and once from a deliberate information.’
‘Who told you about me deliberately? I’ll have a word with the bastard.’
He shook his head and smiled. He knew I wouldn’t.
‘Mr Watson – you know him?’ I nodded. ‘He gives me the name and description of his officers. He asks me to look after them.’
‘. . . and pays you for it.’
‘Of course. So when you come to Ismailia or Suez you are insured.’
‘You said you also learned of me by accident?’
‘Yes, only two weeks ago. I was in Europe – I need to consider investing in a club in developing Europe; somewhere safer than Egypt. One of the owners I dined with named and described you. He also asked me to take care of you if we met.’
‘. . . and paid you.’
‘Of course not. One doesn’t pay one’s partners.’
‘Berlin.’
‘Precisely . . . and hearing your name twice within a few weeks kindled my interest in you, Charlie Bassett.’ Bloody Bozey. ‘I made an investment in all three of your clubs, Charlie. We cannot hold money in Egypt now. Since Farouk left, every time there is trouble the exchange rate crashes. So I invest in the business I know.’ Three clubs? What the fuck was Bozey doing with our money?
The room was like a large study in a stately home, or maybe the reading room of a gentleman’s club in Knightsbridge. It smelt of rich old cigars, and was lined with hanging carpets and books. He came in on cue with, ‘Cigar? I always smoke one about now.’
‘No thank you. Do you mind if I put this on?’ I waved my pipe at him.
‘Of course not; I would say be my guest, but you are not really a guest. When my agent’s negotiations with Mr Borland are successful, you two, and I, will be partners in this very establishment. He has asked for ten per cent.’ I spluttered my beer. ‘So I will say it again: welcome to the Blue Kettle.’
I stared at him. I hope it wasn’t an unfriendly stare. That set Bob Crosby used to play came into my mind . . . the panicky opening bars of ‘Can’t we be friends’ . . . then I reached over, and took his hand for the second time.
‘Thank you, partner . . .’ I paused before asking, ‘Will the British authorities, or Mr Watson, have to know anything about this?’
‘I don’t think so, Charlie, do you? They are not as discreet as they should be. Would you like to recommence your lessons in Arabic now?’
The last thing he showed me was a door in the corridor behind his office. It led directly onto a fire escape, and the back yard. There was always a bicycle beneath it, in case the unfriendly British raided the club, he said. It had happened before.
I waited in a sumptuously appointed lounge. Deep low couches, antimacassars and carpets for wall hangings. A Roman tribune would have felt at home there. A cloudy smoky scent clung to the drapes. Like rich, sweet cigar smoke. When the girl walked in I was surprised to find her in Western clothes: a short white skirt and a skimpy grey top. A three-inch gap between them showed off her stomach: olive-skinned and flat, but with that slight womanly bulge that sends men mad.
I asked her, ‘What’s your real name?’
‘Mariam. Mariam Sfeir. Last night you said you were Charlie.’
I nodded. ‘And you are also from Lebanon?’
‘Beirut, yes. Have you been to Beirut, sir?’
‘No.’
‘It is the most wonderful city in the world: full of millionaires. Are you a millionaire?’
‘Not yet.’
‘David says that I may be able to go on holiday to one of your bars in Germany, if one of your German women comes here as an exchange. Is that right?’
It was an odd definition of holiday perhaps, but I said, ‘Yes, I am sure that will be arranged. You will be a star in Europe. Men will stand in line to watch you dance.’
She giggled. I thought she looked im
possibly glamorous. A mere shadow of lipstick, and a vague suggestion of an expensive perfume. Her hair just brushed her olive shoulders. It was neither brown nor blonde; some magical combination of both which swung whenever she moved her head. Oh Charlie.
‘Famous film directors maybe?’ She went over to an American fridge in one corner. It was as big as a telephone box. When she came back she had two beers for us. I hadn’t paid for anything that night, and didn’t know how this worked.
‘I don’t know,’ I told her honestly.
‘I’m sure David could arrange it . . .’
Twenty minutes later my education in the Arabic tongue recommenced. I found that Lebanese Arabic was an inventive, playful and tactile language. You sleep exceptionally well after a lesson, and I can recommend it to anyone.
I had breakfast with David Yassine.
He asked, ‘You slept well?’
‘Terrifically, thank you.’
‘You weren’t awoken by the noise?’
‘What noise?’
‘There was a demonstration outside. The Muslim Brotherhood wishes me to close my club to British soldiers.’
‘What happened?’
‘I pushed someone out to explain to them that it was already closed to British soldiers, so they sent me a present of fruit and dates, and then went to burn some cars in the Old Town.’
‘Nobody was hurt?’
‘Not as far as I know. Breakfast?’
Breakfast was a large juicy orange, dates, slices of fried goat’s cheese and flat baked bread with honey. Turkish coffee sweet enough to strip the silver from the EPNS. Bloody wonderful. We sat cross-legged on large cushions in front of a low table, and were served by one of his women. She danced for us as we ate. Belly dancing for breakfast: that was one for the diary. I wondered if my dad would believe it when I told him. Yassine asked me where I got my Egyptian spending money, and when I replied, ‘The base,’ he shook his head.
‘Far too expensive. The British government is charging you an extortionate rate to change money they already owe to you, into local currency. In future please come to me. How much do you have at present?’
‘About forty Egyptian pounds.’ Again he shook his head.
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