Moroccan Traffic: Send a Fax to the Kasbah

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Sir Robert. ‘I don’t suppose you could have a worse recipe for a businessman.’ He had moved, his hand on my shoulder in sympathy and now, as I spoke, he walked past me and paused by the piano, looking down at the keys. He said, ‘As a matter of interest, do you know Morgan’s real name?’

  I had never supposed it a secret. ‘Mo? Moses Morgan?’ I said.

  Sir Robert turned. A book of his wife’s occupied the chair at his side. He flung it on the floor and sat down. ‘Mohammed Mirghani,’ he said. ‘He climbs here because he belongs here. He speaks Arabic. He hobnobs with all those eminent sheiks who come here from the Gulf. If he’s going to make waves, it’s not likely to be on the say-so of someone called Oppenheim.’

  ‘So why should someone like Oppenheim bother?’ I said.

  He made an irritable movement. ‘Because Morgan’s a maverick, and might change his mind. Because he has the capacity to make a fortune for anyone who is prepared to pour money into his projects and wait for results. I thought I could do that. I can still do that.’

  ‘If you take MCG,’ I said. ‘If someone else doesn’t take you over first. Sir Robert, Mr. Morgan will have to go home.’

  ‘Out of my sight?’ said the Chairman. In the outer part of the suite a door closed, and I jumped to my feet. He said, ‘Sit down, Wendy!’ as if he were angry. I sat. He said, ‘Remind me. When are we to meet the Geddes woman and Reed? Over lunch at the Toubkal? Ask Mr. Morgan to meet me there an hour earlier. Get him to bring you. Find out, if you will, whether he makes any move towards either of them beforehand. Then I shall have to see what I can do about Sullivan. The drugs were Johnson’s, I assume?’

  ‘He says not,’ I said. ‘He found them on his yacht. Mr. Morgan wondered if Sullivan put them there.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Sir Robert abstractedly. ‘Not that it will make it any easier to persuade the drug squad to free him. What a pity your Mr. Johnson has so many friends in high places. I really must have a talk with him some time.’

  My Mr. Johnson. Once he had been Sir Robert’s Mr. Johnson, painting Sir Robert’s masterly portrait. Once, the portrait had seemed important. The door of the sitting-room opened. Sir Robert said, ‘Come in, darling. We shan’t be a moment. A crisis.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Charity said. She came in, her eyes very large, and sat down, dropping her evening bag accurately on top of her book. She said, ‘But I’m sure you and Miss Helmann have it in hand. No one’s drinking?’

  Sir Robert rose. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Lady Kingsley. ‘Where’s your Mr. Johnson? Reception says he isn’t in.’

  I thought he would tell her about Essaouira. Then I realised he was afraid she might gossip. Or even take Johnson’s part. ‘Perhaps he’s left,’ Sir Robert said. ‘I know the Palace hoped to see rather more of him. And I’m not sure if I want him much longer.’

  She was wearing a flat-fronted crepe dress and some diamonds. She said, ‘What’s he done? Run off with one of your girls?’ She had dined, it was clear, as well as he had.

  He said, ‘When did I ever mind that? Much more tiresome, he’s been indiscreet. He ought not to be here.’

  ‘I want him here,’ Charity said. Her eyes, when she opened them, were enormous and grey. She said, ‘Do what you usually do. Use him.’

  They looked at one another, with no particular rancour. He said, ‘I’d much rather you did. Get him to lend you more brushes. Wendy, I have to trust you to make sure that Mr. Morgan does nothing he shouldn’t. You’ll bring him early tomorrow?’

  I said I would. I left, passing Charity and her amused smile on the way. The Mamounia got me a taxi which took me straight to Mr. Morgan’s hotel, so that I was hardly aware of the leaping fires and dim lights of the square, and the secretive noise of the souks, and the distant thudding of drums for the snake-charmers, the tumblers, the dancers. Inside, I wrote a note in my room, and went to slip it under Mo Morgan’s door. I had only just straightened when the same door was flung open.

  Mo Morgan stood on the threshold, my note in his hand. He was wearing a pair of creased boxer shorts, and his hair fell in corkscrews to his shoulders. Mohammed Mirghani. I had no view of the bed, or of Johnson. Morgan leaned on the doorpost and looked at me. ‘Well, darling, a summons? The beak’s study an hour before prayers?’

  If he was an Arab, he must be a Muslim. Maybe a practising Muslim. ‘More or less,’ I replied. He’d hardly needed to glance at the message. He’d guessed where I’d been.’

  I was afraid of him, just for a moment. He could have pulled me in, bawled me out, anything. Instead, his eyes ran over me once, and then levelled. He said, ‘OK, it’s agreed. Eight o’clock on the floor: eight-thirty departure and, Chairman’s orders, no furtive cavorting with that well-known Latin-American amoeba, Reed and Rita. You wouldn’t like to give a displaced man a share of your bed?’

  So Johnson was still there. I stood and looked at Mo Morgan, and he didn’t look as if he wanted to climb into my bed, any more than I wanted to climb into his. You touch her, you marry her. It wasn’t even worth making a joke.

  I shook my head slowly, and he nodded. ‘Then good night, Miss Wendy Helmann,’ he said. And he closed the door with a click.

  I went to bed feeling sad, for no reason.

  I reached the Grand Hôtel du Toubkal in Asni neither by vintage Sunbeam nor lethal Harley-Davidson but by a respectable ancient Mercedes hired by Mr. Mohammed Morgan and driven by a French-speaking chauffeur who talked all the way. Asked about Mr. Johnson, Morgan merely said briefly that he was, he understood, due for a painting day at the Palace with SM, two SARs and a Wali. Asked about Miss Rita Geddes and Mr. Roland Reed, he added that he thought he was doing well taking me to the meeting without having to waste his time analysing attitudinal shifts. For a moment I thought he must have attended some seminars too, until I realised he was using Pymm-journalese to announce that he didn’t give a damn about Rita and Rolly. For the rest of the journey we were silent.

  Asni lies thirty miles south of Marrakesh on the road which climbs to the Tizi n’Test pass over the mountains. At first, prickly pear lined the way, and scattered over the foothills like litter. The motor road was narrow and broken at either edge, and we had to pull over for lorries piled with stone, and for laden donkeys and strollers. We passed carob trees, and scaled hairpin bends between cliffs and red gorges. There were clusters of red adobe buildings, and flocks of goats and heavy-tailed sheep, and fields of whiskered barley, and ditches of fiercely running reddish-brown water which furnished the occasional mill. We entered the Asni valley, which was filled with a haze of pink and white blossom. Almond trees, said the driver. Cherries. Apples. Pears. ‘And look, where pine trees have been planted!’ It was true. It was like England. I was disappointed, until I saw another camel, and a group of donkeys tethered asleep under a tree, and the morning haze began to give way to heat.

  The sky was wide and clear with a marling of cloud, white paint brushed over blue, which, once more, turned out not to be cloud, but the High Atlas mountains which contained, nearest and best, Jebel Toubkal. Because we were sulking, nobody mentioned it.

  The little market town of Asni is built at a fork, on the slope under the principal road. Isolated on the highway itself stood the hotel we were making for. I realised that Mo Morgan must know it well. It was here that he came for his climbing. We turned into the courtyard and stopped.

  Arranged in bright painted rows in the car park were a powder- blue Sunbeam, a navy Bugatti, a white Auburn, a scarlet Lancia, a silver Peugeot, a blue Talbot and a primrose Jaguar. There were also a Palladium, and MG, a Bentley and several others I could name from my session with Sullivan. The Vintages were here for the last of their rest break. In the sun, under the dazzling Disneyland peaks, they looked like a collection of prime Corgi Matchboxes.

  It produced life, at last, in Mo Morgan. ‘By God!’ he exclaimed, and jumped from the car. The driver also got out, and the
two of them walked up and down, stroking bonnets.

  I descended at leisure, thinking of carpets. Tomorrow, the vintage car rally resumed its route south, presumably making do without Colonel Sullivan, now languishing in jail on a drugs charge. I looked at the empty Sunbeam, now no doubt the charge of co-driver Gerry. Its paint glittered, its wheels and lamps and radiator blazed in the sun.

  Beside it, neatly parked on its stand, was a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide with dog scratches on it. I stopped. I said, ‘I can’t believe. . .’

  Mo Morgan stopped too, and sighed, and came back to me. The problems of Kingsley’s visibly descended again on his shoulders. He said, ‘You think Johnson would actually present himself here? You still think he’s some formula dickhead?’

  The driver tramped off. I said, ‘He stayed all night? What did you talk about?’

  He was unforthcoming, for Morgan. ‘Blue paint and microtechnology. We didn’t mention you once.’ I stared at him, where he stood in the fresh breeze and the brilliant sun with his hatchet face and his pigtail and his distressed jeans and his relieved Marks and Spencer shirt which must have been delivered to him, washed and ironed at dawn and stinking of Gaulloises. Behind him, the Atlas mountains towered into the sky, and rose bushes budded, and boys with trays of sparkling rocks converged on him as on Elizabeth Taylor. He spared them a smile and some dirhams.

  He would. He was one of them. He said, ‘He lent the bike to the Ritas. Shouldn’t we hurry inside? Or we’ll get six on the bottom for dawdling.’

  He didn’t like me any more, even though my family took in his washing.

  Chapter 11

  You could put the Grand Hôtel du Toubkal into the front hall of the Hotel Mamounia, and in some ways it would do the Hotel Mamounia quite a lot of good. The central eating place, dominated by a whacking great fireplace, was empty, but the garden terrace beyond was crammed with damp-haired vintage vehicle owners relaxing under red and yellow umbrellas, and talking largely in English. I could hear two American voices. From the rolled towels lying about, I deduced the owners had all found the pool. They were on holiday.

  One degree away from the really dizzily wealthy, these (according to Sullivan) were largely nutters who were happiest when spending all their considerable petty dosh on building and rebuilding their cars, and then competing against one another in places traditionally endowed with decent watering-holes. There were grander species of the breed in existence but this bash had suited Seb, it was clear; he had enrolled for Morocco some time ago. Because of Johnson, he wasn’t enjoying it.

  As the thought came into my mind I observed, seated under a willow, Mr. Roland Reed and Miss Rita Geddes, drinking coffee. The willow was weeping. Miss Geddes was wearing stretch pants and a poncho: also her water-carrier’s hat and her pink cartwheel spectacles. Reed, as before, was dressed in neat holiday togs. So was I. We were the only two I would have trusted. We left them alone, and made our way instead to the private dining room, for Mo Morgan’s special chat with the Chairman.

  Sir Robert, in silk scarf and cashmere, welcomed us briskly and impartially. ‘Ah, Mo. Good of you to join us. Good of you to bring Miss Helmann along.’ He had come without Charity. He added, ‘Perhaps, Wendy, you could see if the restaurant could manage two coffees?’ In Boardroom matters, he was always punctilious. Executive Secretaries do not get to hear Executive Directors being burned by their Chairman.

  I went off and had the coffees sent in, and overcome by uncertainty, ordered one for myself, alone among the dim exotica of the public room, which offered divans heaped with wool cushions below Moorish lanterns and stucco work, and walls hung with pictures and hunting weapons. A number of stuffed heads inspected me.

  The staff made as if they’d known me for years. Since we stepped in the door, they had greeted Mo Morgan like a cousin. How long could he stay? Was he climbing again? Had he seen the voitures de collection? Ah, Mr. Mirghani should buy himself a car such as that!

  I drank my coffee, and watched the sunlit terrace outside the windows, and the drying drivers with their wives and/or girlfriends and helpers. The tables were now set for lunch. The drivers seemed to come in all sizes: a pair of jolly, tough women; several effective-looking chaps like Seb and Gerry, and some older men with pretty companions. The Americans were of different ages: a middle-aged man and a youngish mechanic. Their sunburn was as recent as Pymm’s, and I put them down as North Sea Oil exiles. There were Frenchmen the colour of chocolate. Lolling beside them was a brown and burly young fellow in swimshorts. Gerry Owen, of Black & Holroyd, PR consultants, last seen asleep in Johnson’s club dining room.

  Far from mourning his partner, the Sunbeam co-driver was chatting up talent, and the talent was responding with squeals of shocked laughter. The glances people gave him were tolerant. Because of Sullivan, Gerry was out of the rally. Because of Johnson, of course, to be accurate.

  The sun was high now, and the terrace dazzled with light. On the left, beyond steps and lanterns and flowerbeds I could see the way to the pool and the changing-rooms. On the right, still seated under the willow tree were the Chief Executive of MCG in her tarty clothes with her soigné accountant. Behind them, the distant snows of the mountains looked cold behind a row of red urns, a children’s swing and some cages. Studying these, I could detect budgerigars calling each other to prayer, and a tangle of small, active monkeys, and a solitary den with a short, powerful beast with big tusks. It made an interesting group. Now and then Mr. Reed turned and fed a monkey a peanut butter biscuit, but didn’t offer one to Miss Rita Geddes, who was laying off about something.

  I supposed argument was a substitute for writing, spelling and business comprehension. I could see a wet towel on a chair beside them: Mr. Reed’s crinkled brown hair was still fuzzy. They had come early and swum; or he had. I couldn’t think the gaudy Miss G. got her feet wet. The Ritas knew their way around. Johnson Johnson knew his way around. I remembered Mr. Pymm quoting him in praise of this place and its rye. I couldn’t see anyone drinking it.

  Later, I should have to take the MCGs up to the meeting. The Ritas, Mo Morgan had called them. But not yet. Not until Mr. Morgan came down.

  I didn’t have to wait long. His distressed and braceleted figure appeared, intact so far as I could tell, escorted by two new members of the owner’s family, to whom he introduced me. Recalling all I wanted to recall of Ellwood Pymm, I said, ‘Assalamou AlaiKom,’ and was repaid by pleased surprise and an immediate service of Scotch, commanded by Morgan.

  Morgan said, ‘It means Hi. You told me. I remember.’

  ‘You ought to know,’ I remarked. It came out sourly.

  The drinks arrived, and he paid for them without speaking. Then he said, ‘Yeah. Your high-performance, family model, unleaded Arab. So who told you – Sir Robert? Then here’s another piece of shattering news. Assalamou AlaiKom doesn’t mean Hi! It means, in its own foreign way, Peace be upon you. So peace be upon you, dear Wendy.’

  He drank, but I didn’t. I began to say, ‘You might have told me,’ and pulled myself together in time. He was, heaven help us, a Company Director. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan. I know you’re upset about me. Can you tell me anything about what happened upstairs?’

  ‘Were you listening for the chainsaw?’ said Mr. Morgan. ‘Well, I’ll maybe find the internal injuries in the shower, but as of this moment, Sir Robert is coming on with all the sensitive charm of Mr. Nice Guy. After his first reaction, I quote, of disappointment and horror, he has come to a better understanding of my conduct. He accepts that I received an unwanted approach, of which I hardly understood the significance. Had I been more experienced, I should have reported the matter immediately. I now understand that I am morally and legally bound to this company. Happily, and I am still quoting, he sets store by my clear intention to stay. I have made the right decision. With the resources of this great firm behind me, mine will be a scientific career of international significance. With Sir Robert’s good help, I can expect to be buried a K.’ />
  I gazed at him. He had a new rubber band in his pigtail. I blurted, ‘That’s crap.’ I heard myself, and goose pimples came out all over my arms.

  ‘I resent that,’ said Mr. Mohammed Mirghani. He tipped back half his whisky and rapped the glass down. He looked much more like himself. Also, he seemed to have come out of his sulks.

  I said, ‘Of course, I mean, Sir Robert didn’t say all of that?’

  ‘Cross my loof. Followed by a single snap of the jaws. If I’m discovered at it again, he would find it hard to stop the Directors from taking immediate action.’

  ‘What action?’ I said. That, at least, sounded like Sir Robert. I was glad.

  ‘Hard to make out,’ he said. ‘My vee-tuft toothbrush would go, and a few other concessions. He had a few quarried words to say, too, about Mr. Daniel Oppenheim. Doesn’t want me to meet him again.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said. I had almost recovered from my embarrassment.

  ‘But I want to,’ said Mr. Mo Morgan. ‘Shake hands and say goodbye, both with our caps on. Told Sir Robert as much. He wasn’t pleased.’

  I sat up. ‘Mr. Morgan, one meeting was bad enough. If you and Mr. Oppenheim are seen together again, it will start rumours. You mustn’t go. It’s unfair to the company.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mr. Morgan. ‘Keep your hair on, if not necessarily anything else. I’ve had all that explained to me, darling. Operating to Agreed Quality Standard and Committed to Zero Defects. Good as gold, and that’s saying something. Shouldn’t we be going up?’

  I’d even forgotten the meeting. I stood and said, ‘We?’ I couldn’t believe he was going.

  ‘All debt has its price, sweetheart. Kingsley Conglomerates have to be nice if they want me. I came to bum my way into this meeting, and Sir Robert can’t stop me, so long as I behave myself. We all know that MCG will have had a tip-off by now from pal Johnson. They’ll know I’ve had a buyout approach. I don’t mind letting them see that it didn’t work. Sir Robert quite accepted the point when I mentioned it. Same applies to my future behaviour. Any hint of my resignation, of course, and my vee-tuft toothbrush will be smashed, and very likely my matched double set of vee teeth.’