Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (5 page)

“I didn’t hear anything about school; she’s modeling.”

He nodded, still staring down at the ring. “Funny,” he mused, “this came from Uncle Hu when we were still in the nursery, I’d forgotten its source until this minute. He gave it me, said it was magic or some such bit of whimsy, and for years I wore it faithfully on a string around my neck. That’s how it all started, and here I am working for Uncle Hu now, and the ring’s here, too.” His laugh was so bitter it startled him as well as Mrs. Pollifax and he glanced up. “It’s really decent of you to have bothered with this, and I’m being terribly rude, boring you with my blighted life. May I offer you a lemonade?”

“You weren’t being rude, you were feeling sorry for yourself,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax firmly. “And yes it
was
decent of me, except that I had too much time for just eating and not enough time for sleeping because of having to be
back at the hotel before eight. Also I was curious. Yes, I will have a lemonade, thank you.”

“Curious because of Mia?” he asked.

“Not entirely. I thought it restful—soothing, you know—to have a small errand to run, and the name and address of someone here, in a strange city and strange country.” She stopped and suddenly smiled. “It just occurs to me: I’m probably feeling a touch of homesickness. Or rather of not-at-homeness.”

He nodded. “Your first trip abroad?”

Mrs. Pollifax smiled faintly. “Yes and no,” she said adroitly. “The first alone, at least.”

“Then do come and have that lemonade,” he suggested understandingly. “Although if you’re traveling alone who’s the chap with you, your driver? Guide?”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him blankly. “There’s no one with me. I came in a taxi but the driver went away.” She turned, following Colin’s glance up the driveway to the alley. “What is it?”

He grinned. “Some tourist—a chap in a dark suit with a camera. He’s strolled past twice, trying not to look too interested in us. Tourists don’t usually get this far.”

Henry
, thought Mrs. Pollifax warmly. But how absolutely astute of him, she reflected, he had not for a moment forsaken his post, he had seen her leave and followed. A rush of gratitude flooded her at such touching protectiveness, and then she put the thought aside and turned and followed Colin toward the house. “But how do you happen to notice such things?” she asked of Colin, responding at once to such an active imagination.

He smiled ruefully as he held open the door to the house. “Compensation, I guess—observation is my only talent. I’m a complete embarrassment to a brilliant family—it’s why they’ve shipped me out here to Turkey.”

Mrs. Pollifax entered a bleak, cheerless kitchen dominated by a very old refrigerator with coils on the top. “Purest Soho, circa 1920,” commented Colin with a gesture toward the room. “Do have a seat.”

Mrs. Pollifax slid gratefully onto a bench beside a long trestle table. “But what kind of brilliant family?” she asked. “That is, if you could use just one word—”

“That’s easy,” said Colin, removing ice cube trays from the antique refrigerator. “Successful.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “But in what way? What values?”

He scowled. “Well, they climb mountains. Big ones,” he added angrily. “They excel at rugby and take honors at Oxford and rather tend to get knighted. They go into the Army and win medals, that sort of thing. My father’s an M.P. My two brothers went to Sandhurst and they’ll either be generals or M.P.s, wait and see. You met my sister. She’s the baby of the family, but if she’s taken up modeling she’ll be a top model on all the magazine covers by Christmas. My mother’s a poet and the last time I saw a London
Times
she was in jail for picketing—some kind of labor protest. That’s being a success these days too, you know.” He gloomily handed Mrs. Pollifax a frosty glass of lemonade and sat down across the table from her.

Mrs. Pollifax said tartly, “I think someone in your family read far too much Halliburton in their youth. But if they’re active and extroverted and like heights, that’s their prerogative. What do
you
like best?”

He looked thoughtful. “It’s hard to say, you know. I’m an absolute physical coward. I daresay that’s something most people don’t have to learn about themselves by the age of eight, but living with my family I learned it early. Alpine climbing absolutely terrifies me, boxing appalls me and fencing scares the hell out of me. The Army didn’t turn out to be my cup of tea and I flunked out of Oxford.” He brightened. “Frankly I like it
here
. It’s a joy having nobody care that I’m a Ramsey, and Uncle Hu doesn’t care tuppence about climbing mountains, he’s too busy running this rum outfit. But damn it I’m desperately afraid that just when I’ve found the right nook I shall blow it. Failure
can
get to be a habit, you know.”

“Nonsense,” put in Mrs. Pollifax flatly.

“But just see what’s happened. Uncle Hu goes off to Erzurum with his projection man for a week, and after showing me the work for four months he leaves me with just ten minutes of filming, the first assignment he’s given me, and I’m already blowing the whole thing. He runs a shoestring operation; I ask you, how long can he afford me?”

Mrs. Pollifax glanced curiously around the barren room.
“You mean this address is all there is to Ramsey Enterprises Ltd.?”

Colin nodded. “Mostly it’s a matter of traveling around the country—he comes back here to splice and develop film and pick up his mail. He has a tie-in with the British Council. Winters he puts chains and a snowplow on the van and goes on tour, as he calls it. Shows Turkish films in the
hata series
—the council houses in the villages—and occasionally shows films from England. There are thousands of little villages in Turkey and for some of them it’s the only contact they have with the outside world except for the traveling schoolteacher. But his real passion is making documentaries about Turkey—he really loves the place. In the summer he drops everything for this, he’ll take on any assignment he can get—travelogs, industrial films, commercials, short subjects, that sort of thing.”

“And works all alone!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.

Colin smiled wryly. “There’s scarcely enough money in it for a crowd, but he does all right. As you can see, he picks up people like me when it pleases him, and then there are students in the summer, and in the winter there are mechanics and out-of-work seasonal people. It’s all very casual but it functions.”

“And your family like him?”

Colin wrinkled his nose. “Everything’s relative, isn’t it? He used to be
Sir
Hubert, with all the usual Ramsey accomplishments. Medals. Honors. Came out of World War Two loaded with that sort of thing, was knighted by the King and then one day took all the medals, flushed ’em down the toilet, packed a duffel bag and left England. A woman, my mother said. No, they don’t
like
him but they leave him alone.” He sighed. “It’s hard to explain my family, they’re not monsters, you know, they’re marvelous really. Colorful, competitive, uninhibited, uncomplicated. I’d have absolutely no problems at all if—well, if—”

“If you were also colorful, competitive, uninhibited and uncomplicated,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

“Yes.” He grinned at her appreciatively. “But what brings you to Turkey?” he asked.

Mrs. Pollifax suddenly remembered why she was in Turkey and a sense of dismay chilled her. “The time!” she
gasped, and looked at her watch only to discover that it had stopped. “Have you the correct time? I’m to meet a woman at eight o’clock in the lobby of my hotel.”

Colin at once came to life. “I say—I’ll take you back in the jeep! It’s the least I can do after your bringing Mia’s message, and it’ll take my mind off my disasters.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not quite seven—three minutes lacking. I wish there were more time, I could show you St. Sophia’s on the way. Are you meeting your friend for dinner?”

“Friend?” Mrs. Pollifax was caught off guard. “Oh no—that is, I would like to take her to dinner but I don’t know her. I mean, I don’t know that she’ll have the time for it. I’m only delivering—” She stopped, utterly appalled at the words she was letting slip. Really she must be more tired than she’d realized.

Colin Ramsey was smiling at her. “You know, you act just the way I do sometimes, but I can’t think when or why. You stammered.”

“I’m tired.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re nervous.”

“Well, I shall be very nervous indeed if I’m late,” she said, regaining control. “How long will it take us to reach the Itep?”

“The Itep!” he said. “Not the Hilton?”

Mrs. Pollifax suddenly and overwhelmingly realized why she was drawn to Colin, and she felt a small sense of alarm. They were alike. They had each lived quiet lives in the shadow of more dazzling personalities so that, somewhat submerged but no less intelligent, they had become observers. Acute observers. She recognized at once from Colin’s question—so very akin to what she too would have noted—that he was weighing the Oteli Itep against what he saw and guessed of her, and the Itep did not fit, it introduced an unguessed facet of character that entertained and alerted him.

“The Itep, yes,” she said firmly.

He looked amused. He arose and rinsed the two glasses under the faucet automatically, as if he were accustomed to looking after himself, probably over hot plates and wash basins in grubby London rooms, she guessed. “Ever
ridden in a jeep before?” he asked as he led her across the courtyard.

“Never.”

“All you have to do is hang on tight,” he explained. “Hold your skirt down and your hat on.” He glanced at her hat and smiled faintly. “It will be an experience for you.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Pollifax, realizing that he believed he was giving her an event in an uneventful life.

“But I still hope you’ll dine with me, which is what I was leading up to,” he confided. “Blast it, I’ve eaten alone for three days now, and if you don’t mind awfully, I’ll wait and see what plans you make with your friend.” He added wistfully, “I could show you both something of Istanbul, you know—it’s beautiful at night. The Galata Bridge, the moon over the Golden Horn, and St. Sophia’s at night is unbelievable. We could eat at Pierre Loti’s, and—”

She felt the undercurrent of his eagerness: he was lonely. She said gently, “We’ll see, shall we?”

“I’ll park outside the hotel and wait until quarter past the hour,” he said. “It’s no hardship, you know, the streets of Istanbul are never boring.” He shifted gears and they were off, sending up clouds of dust, and Mrs. Pollifax became too busy clinging to her hat to exchange further comments.

It was 7:35 when Mrs. Pollifax entered the lobby of the Oteli Itep, leaving Colin behind to look for a parking space and wait his alloted span of moments. She went upstairs, again washed her face in cold water, removed
Gone with the Wind
from her suitcase and locked her door behind her. Her mind was now functioning without blurredness; she was suddenly a courier, a secret agent, and she arranged the expression on her face accordingly. She realized that she ought to have taken the time earlier to explore the hotel—it would have been the professional thing to do—and so she walked upstairs instead of down—the hotel had no elevator—and discovered that the third floor was the top one. There was an interesting metal door to the roof: she tested it, looked out upon an expanse of flat tile, nodded approvingly and chose the narrow back stairs for her descent, virtually tiptoeing lest anyone point out that they were reserved for hotel personnel. The stairs ended in a shabby first floor landing with three exits: one into the lobby, one to the street, and the last to the basement. Pleased with her tour, Mrs. Pollifax walked into the lobby and sat down, book in hand, at precisely ten minutes before the hour.

It was a very Turkish lobby, its floor glowing with the colors and design of an unusually fine Turkish rug. The remainder of it was furnished with baroque statuary and old leather couches. Mrs. Pollifax had taken the couch near the back
stairs, at some distance from the front, so that she was well out of the traffic between the main entrance and the larger staircase, and prominently displayed against the only window in the lobby. In fact she judged it to be the most conspicuous place possible, and she carefully arranged her book so that it was equally as conspicuous. With considerable suspense she watched the hands of the clock move slowly toward eight. The lobby was small, and there were only a few people waiting. Henry Miles had come in and was seated in a corner looking nearly invisible again, his eyes half-closed as if he were dozing. A young couple held hands in another corner and two men smoked and gossiped along the other wall.

It was when Henry glanced up that Mrs. Pollifax also looked to the entrance and became alert. It was precisely eight o’clock and a woman had entered the hotel. She brought with her a quality that changed the lobby so forcibly that Mrs. Pollifax wondered how people continued to walk and talk without awareness of it. What she brought with her—and to Mrs. Pollifax it pervaded the lobby—was fear. No, not fear but terror, amended Mrs. Pollifax: a primitive, palpable terror so real that it could almost be smelled and touched. The woman stood at the edge of the lobby, desperately trying not to be seen as her glance searched the room. Did her eyes ever so subtly drop to the gaudy book that Mrs. Pollifax held upright in her lap?