A Half Forgotten Song (36 page)

F
or ten days they took outings together, fitting them in around Charles’s spasms of creativity. Dimity noticed that Celeste chose to walk close to her daughters, rather than with her or Charles, and she was happy with that arrangement. They visited El Attarine, the sprawling thatched souk in the center of the city, where anything under the sun was available to buy if you knew where to go within the cramped plethora of shops. They climbed the stairs of a house, tipping the elderly man who lived there a few coins, and walked out onto his roof to see the tanning and dyeing vats laid out below; row upon row of white clay pits, full of stinking hides and tanning solution or the wild, rainbow colors of the dyes. They saw blue and white pottery and tiles being made and painted and fired; and once, by mistake, they saw a small brown goat hung up by its back legs, kicking desperately as its throat was cut. From another vantage point, they gazed upon the jade-green tower of the Karaouine Mosque, and the array of mosaicked university buildings and sacred courtyards surrounding it, forbidden to infidel feet.

“What would happen if a Christian were to go inside?” asked Dimity, in awe of the beauty and grandeur of the place.

“I think it might be best not to find out,” said Charles.

“It’s so beautiful and perfect . . . and yet so many of the other nice buildings in the city are being left to fall to pieces,” said Delphine. Celeste put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

“Moroccans are a nomad people. Berbers and Arabs both. We may build homes for ourselves from stone and brick these days, but still we think of them as tents. As though they are temporary, not permanent,” she said.

“Well, there’s no surer way to make a building temporary than to neglect it, I suppose,” said Charles, grinning at Celeste to show he was joking. She didn’t smile back at him, and his grin faded to nothing.

At dinner that night talk turned to the end of the trip, and a return to Blacknowle before the summer was spent. Celeste fixed Charles with steady, unforgiving eyes.

“I could stay here forever. But we are at your disposal, as ever. As I choose to be,” she said flatly.

“Please, Celeste. Don’t be that way,” said Charles, taking her hand.

“I am as I am. Feelings do not go away.” She shrugged. “Life would be simpler sometimes if they would.” She gazed at him without rancor, but with such strength of feeling that he looked away and said nothing for a while. Dimity sat in the heat of the night and felt herself burn, as if all her pent-up thoughts would ignite.
No.
The word scorched her silent tongue. She wanted the trip to last forever—not a trip at all but a new life, a new reality. In this place, where she could sit for Charles every day and nobody whispered or called her names; and there was no Valentina, all pinched with spite, demanding she ask for money; where food was brought to her by black-eyed young men, and she did not have to hunt for it, or find it in a drenched hedgerow; skin or pluck or cook it herself; where she could wear colors as bright as the bougainvillea flowers and the tiles on the walls and the roofs of the holy buildings, clothes that swung and floated around her like royal finery; where she lived in a house with a fountain at its heart and a hot sky instead of a ceiling. Morocco was a place of dreams, and she never wanted to wake up.

The next day, Celeste took her daughters and went again to visit her mother. Dimity tried not to let her excitement show; tried not to let them see how happy she was to be left alone with Charles. She felt elated, and dreaded that Celeste would be able to see it. Celeste turned at the door and gave them both a steady look, but she said nothing. Charles seemed distracted, and he frowned as they set off into the city, his art materials in a leather satchel over his shoulder. He walked quickly, striding ahead so that Dimity struggled to keep up. She kept her eyes on his back, and watched as a dark fan of sweat spread slowly through his shirt. After a while, it seemed as though he was running from her, trying to leave her behind, and she hurried on, feeling a rising desperation that she couldn’t quite define. Desperate to be kept, and not abandoned. Desperate to be loved, and drawn, and wanted. Her heart was full of him; the words he had said to her sang like prayers in her mind.
I’ll do my best for you, Mitzy. She is perfect.
Had he said that? Called her perfect? She was sure he had.
Who knows which way life will take us?
And how he had looked after he said that, how deep in thought, lost in imagining; clearly the future he saw was different from the present. And he would not marry Celeste; he had good reason not to. A reason the girls weren’t allowed to tell her. A reason that
was
her?
Perfect.
For you, Mitzy.
The new swan turned out to be the most beautiful of them all.

Soon they were out of the city’s bustling heart and on quiet streets running between clustered houses. Dimity was fighting for breath and her legs felt heavier with every step. She realized that their path had turned uphill, and felt a trickle of sweat run down her own spine. They must have walked right across town and been climbing out of the valley, a long, long way from the guesthouse. The sun was rising to its highest point, sharp as a knife. They came to a place where the walls on either side of the alley were no more than two feet apart, and the shadow pooling between them was cool and deep. Unable to go on at such a pace, Dimity gave up and leaned back on the wall for a moment to catch her breath. Realizing that her footsteps had ceased, Charles looked back at her. He still wore the same distracted frown.

“You need a rest, yes, of course,” he said. “Thoughtless of me.” He came to stand opposite her, lit a cigarette, and took a long pull.

“You’re never thoughtless,” said Dimity. Charles smiled.

“You must be the only person who thinks that, and I fear you’re being more loyal than truthful. The people close to an artist often lose out to the art itself. It’s unavoidable. Sometimes there just isn’t enough room in my thoughts for everybody.”

“We all need time to ourselves. Time to breathe, and be left alone. Or we’d forget who we really are.”

“Yes! Exactly that. Time to breathe. Mitzy, you are a surprising girl sometimes. One could take you for the most untutored
naïf,
and then you come out with a simple truth that cuts to the core of human nature . . . Remarkable.” He shook his head, and drew again on his cigarette. Dimity smiled.

“Are you going to draw today?” she said.

“I don’t know. I wanted to, but . . . Celeste . . .” He shook his head. “She is a force of nature, that woman. When she is stormy, it’s hard to find calm.”

“Yes,” Dimity agreed.

She watched the pursing of his lips on his cigarette, the movement of his throat, the way he narrowed his eyes against the smoke. They stood facing each other, just a few inches apart; nothing between them but the warm, shady air. That space seemed to pull at Dimity, seemed to urge her nearer to him. Charles looked at her and smiled, and she stepped forwards, helplessly. She was no more than a hand’s width from him, and the closer she got the more she knew that she needed this to live. Needed the touch of his body, his skin; needed to taste him, to be consumed by him. A craving she couldn’t withstand for another second.

“Mitzy . . .” said Charles. There was a tiny furrow on his forehead, and in it she saw the echo of her own need, the strain of resisting what was pulling at them. She stepped forwards again, so that her body was touching his. Her breasts, her stomach, her hips and thighs; she shivered, felt the yearning grow even stronger, even more urgent. With shaking fingers she grasped his hand, put it on her waist, and left it there, warm, solid. She felt his fingers move, tightening slightly, and looked up to find him staring at her. “Mitzy,” he said again, softly now. She tilted up her chin, but given the difference in their heights, she could go no closer to him than this; nestled herself tighter to him. She shut her eyes and then felt his mouth against hers; soft, scented with smoke, the rough brush of whiskers on his top lip so unexpected, so unlike Wilf Coulson’s kiss. She felt the lightest touch of his tongue, the wet tip of it, brushing hers. Against her pelvis, he grew hard and swollen, and for a hung moment he leaned into her, reached his hands around her waist and pulled her tighter. The feeling was like her heart exploding; an unbearable ache of joy. Then his kiss vanished, and he pushed her away so abruptly that she stumbled back and hit the wall with a thump.

Dimity blinked rapidly, her desire disorienting her.

“No, Mitzy!” Charles raked his hands through his hair, then put one of them across his mouth and looked at her, turning his body awkwardly to the side. Desperately she reached out for him again, but he clasped her fingers and held them away. “Stop. You’re just a child . . .”

“I’m
not
a child. And I love you . . .”

“You don’t . . . you don’t know about love yet. How could you? It’s a crush, nothing more. I should have seen it before now . . . Celeste did warn me. I’m sorry, Mitzy. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“But you did!” Tears choked her. “Why did you kiss me, if you didn’t want to?”

“I—” Charles broke off and looked away again. His cheeks were flushed. “Sometimes it’s very hard for a man to resist.”

“I know you want me . . . I felt it.” Her tears were making her nose run, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care; she could only try to think of ways to convince him, ways to feel again the bliss of kissing him.

“Dimity, please, stop now! It shouldn’t have happened and it mustn’t again. We can’t . . . we can’t just take what we want, when we want it. It’s a cruel fact of life, but a fact nonetheless. It would be wrong, and I am not free to . . . Celeste and I . . .”

“I’d never tell, I swear it. Please, I do love you. I want to kiss you again; I want to please you . . .”

“Enough!” He slapped her reaching hands away. His teeth were gritted together and his nostrils flared, and she saw some great conflict within him, and prayed that he would lose. But he did not. He folded his arms and took a deep breath, blowing it out through his cheeks. “Come now, let’s go on, and talk no more about it. Someday soon you’ll make some young lad very happy, and be a lovely wife to him. But it cannot be me, Mitzy. Put it out of your mind now.” He walked away along the alleyway, and it was some moments before Dimity could find her feet to follow. She ran her tongue over her lips to pick up every last trace of him, and inside her head she was numb and disheveled, as though his kiss had shaken up the right order of her thoughts and made a blizzard of them.

T
he next day she awoke feeling dizzy and weak. She lay with the mattress pressing into her sweaty back and couldn’t think of rising, or of breakfast. Delphine fussed around her for a while, and brought her water while Élodie watched from the doorway, flatly curious and unwilling to help. When Delphine had gone, she walked over to Dimity, looked down at her.

“If you think by playing sick you’ll get to spend the day with Daddy again instead of with us, then you’re quite wrong. He’s gone off already, to meet with an artist friend who arrived in Fez last night. So you’ll be stuck here on your own all day,” she said coolly. Dimity stared at her, and Élodie stared back, and did not blink. Even if Dimity hadn’t been feeling as ill as she was, she would not have given this dark, perceptive child the satisfaction of seeing her slough off a ruse and get up. In the glance they exchanged was all the power Élodie now had, in guessing Dimity’s heart, and all the will with which Dimity would resist her. Eventually Élodie smiled, as though she had won, turned, and walked back to the doorway. “Everybody knows, you know. You’re so obvious about it,” she said, in parting. Dimity lay very still, and felt sicker than ever. The world seemed to tip, throwing her off balance; she had to hang on tight not to fall.

She lay in a trance for some hours; then, unsteadily, she got dressed and went onto the inner terrace to look down into the courtyard. There was no sign of anybody. She walked along the hall to Charles’s and Celeste’s room, listened for a moment, and then knocked softly. There was no reply, no sound of movement. She knocked again, louder, and still there was nothing. Her throat was parched and had a tight, raw feeling. Turning away, she paused, then, in a heartbeat, without thought, she had opened their door and gone inside. The shutters were closed to keep the room cool during the heat of the day, and in the dim light creeping through Dimity looked around, taking in the clothes and shoes lying about; Charles’s stack of drawings and small canvases, his books and boxes of pencils and brushes. She stood at the foot of the bed and tried to tell which side Celeste slept on, and which side Charles. The pillows still bore the slight indentations of their heads, and she found a long black hair on one, so she crossed to the other and ran her fingers lightly over the place where his head had lain. Slowly she knelt down and lowered her face, inhaled in search of the scent of him. But the dye on the striped fabric was too strong, and was all she could smell. She tried to imagine what Charles would look like in sleep, and realized that she had never seen him like that. Never seen his face soft and vulnerable in repose; the flicker of dreams playing with his eyes behind their lids; the steady, regular depth of unconscious breathing. Imagining it gave her a pulling sensation, like something tearing softly inside her. She swam in the heavenly memory of his kiss, emblazoned across her mind.

In one corner of the room was a wooden table with a mirror on top and a small upholstered stool in front of it. Celeste had been using this as a dressing table, and its top was covered with her jewelry and hairbrushes, pots of face cream and powder. In a small, tightly lidded box was a soft plastic cup, the size of an eggcup meant for a bantam’s egg. Its base was rounded so it wouldn’t stand up, and Dimity stared at it for a minute, trying to think what it could be for. Eventually she set it aside and picked up some of Celeste’s silver earrings, long ones with turquoise beads; she held them up to her ears, then fitted them to the lobes, screwing the backs tight to secure them. She gathered her hair into a knot behind her head to see the effect better, the way the beads swung around her jawline. Her pulse raced along with the guilt and temerity of trespass. There were necklaces, too. She picked up her favorite, the one Celeste wore only in the evening, for dinner. A twisted rope of black and gray freshwater pearls, their luster like the sheen on the Berber woman’s skin, gleaming in the light from a candle flame. Dimity tugged the neckline of her caftan further open, so that the pearls would sit, cool and heavy, against her own skin. There was an ornate carved wooden screen next to the dressing table, and Celeste had draped her chemise and several other items over it—the scarves she sometimes wore around her hair or her waist; the belts and sashes that fastened her robes. Dimity chose one carefully: a gauzy, diaphanous veil of pale cream silk with tiny silver coins sewn along the edges. She draped it over her head so that it covered her hair and studied the effect in the mirror. In caftan, jewels, and veil, she hardly knew herself. Hazel eyes lined with thick, dark brown lashes, clear skin, the shadows under her eyes from her restless sleep only seeming to add an extra delicacy, a vulnerability.