Tremor (20 page)

Johnny preferred the
Merrimac
, whose destination was a better one for him, but he could not book a cabin, except provisionally, without an available passport, and the
Vesteraaven
gave him an extra day's grace if the passport was delayed.

He had chosen the name Henri Delaware. He had decided to become a French Canadian, a vague nationality which, so long as he wasn't in Canada, would give him a wider scope for invention. When this was known to Ardrossi he demanded an extra five hundred dollars, but in this at least he had resorted to bargaining and they had settled on an overall total of 1,450 dollars.

It was worth it to Johnny because of the speed promised. After the
Vesteraaven
there was no really suitable ship leaving Casablanca for nearly three weeks.

Johnny was up at six on the Monday. He looked at the case. His whole life centred on that case. Everything he had done, all the risks he had taken, was still taking, all the plans … What the hell if people stared? They would not knock him down, run off with it.

He took it with him.

A stout elderly photographer in a blue skull cap let him in and the job was done in no time. Ardrossi hovered in the background. Handing over his own passport was worrying to Johnny, but they insisted it was necessary in order to make an exact copy. Anyway he had another with him, though it was too hot for safe use. He returned to the hotel for breakfast. He would go and see his father later in the day but not tell him he was leaving on the Tuesday morning. He would just pay his bill early that day and slip away to join the ship. Her approximate departure time was ten a.m. It was going to be tight for time, but if he caught the eight thirty plane it would give him just long enough in Casablanca to confirm the booking and pay for the voyage. Then away.

He had had no nightmares last night. He had stayed gambling until the Casino closed at two, had lost money but not heavily, and had drunk much more than usual. He had helped Mme Legrand and Mlle Reynard to hoist the somnolent figure of Mlle Grasset out of her chair at the roulette table, and resuscitate her with playful slaps into a state at which she could stagger out of the Casino and be squeezed into the Renault. He might have gone back with them to the hotel to help them in, for Françoise in her cups became as lumpy and cumbersome as a flock mattress, but it was just nearing eleven, and it had been necessary to catch Ardrossi.

He spent the morning lying sweating on a chaise-longue by the swimming-pool, counting the minutes as they crawled past. Laura, Vicky and Françoise appeared about eleven and crowded round him, full of last night and the fact that Vicky at least had come out a winner. Françoise was no worse for the drink she had had yesterday. Hangover did not exist in her vocabulary; and it seemed fairly clear that all three of them intended to spend today in an alcoholic haze. They insisted on buying Johnny a large Pernod, and he raised no objection; he found their conversation amusing and their company helped the time to pass.

By now they had confirmed his suspicions of what their profession was, and he listened cynically to reminiscences and anecdotes about their more peculiar clients.

During the morning M. and Mme Thibault put in a brief appearance at the corner of the swimming-pool but, seeing who was there, as quickly left.

At twelve Matthew and Nadine returned from Taroudant. Nadine was content but thoughtful, Matthew exuberant. This association had started quite casually for him, almost in a superficial way; she was very pretty and elegant, with a rare quality of personality which captivated him. A fillip for his holiday. But it had grown into something more than that, reaching down into the unplumbed depths of his being. For the first time in his life he knew himself to be really in love.

For the first time he knew what head over heels meant. The day had new and more brilliant colours. Sitting in the car beside him she was beyond compare. The scent of her silky skin had got itself into his bloodstream so that she was within him, a part of him, to be remembered, savoured, cherished and soon, soon, very soon to be renewed in all its fullness and passion.

Pierre had again suggested either that they should go on to Marrakech or stay here while he was away, swimming, sunbathing, eating and drinking and being waited on by his incomparable staff until he returned. But Nadine had tactfully said no. They had agreed to return on Thursday.

This also really suited Matthew. He had come with just enough money in Agadir to get by, but in this company he needed more: he was anxious not to allow Mlle Deschamps out of his sight. As long as money could be found to allow him to be with her, whether in Agadir or back in Paris, there he wanted to be. Time today to cable his mother and get her response before Thursday. Borrowing from your mother was not a practice he approved of; he had done it only twice before when in dire emergency; but this he felt was an emergency, if sublime rather than dire.

Nadine's thoughtfulness was not because she had not been stirred by the events of the night – rather the contrary. Only once before in her life had she been affected to this degree by a man. She liked it. She liked it very much. But that time had led to disaster. She did not want the sort of trauma that had been hers when Jean-Paul had moved out of her life. Going along with the natural sexual instincts of a woman charmed by the passion of this good-looking young Englishman went a very French practicality and intuition; and she was not yet sure about Matthew.

She told herself it was perhaps just the burnt-child syndrome: I have been this way once before and how wonderful it was and then how unbearably awful; watch your step before you go and burn yourself again. Here was a young man of great personal quality. His knowledge of music and art – his obsession with them – his standing as an author with two or three novels to his name. Individual brilliance. But how stable was he emotionally? Capable of being carried away by the feelings of the moment. Capable of great charm – and sexual vitality – and the ability to convince that this was what he really meant and always would mean.

Twice she had picked out contradictions in his presentation of himself. Once it had been three novels he had written, once it had been two. How many, if any, had really been published? Was it unkind to care? Nadine cared. Not on the level of his personal achievement but on the level of his inner honesty and commitment.

In the meantime she was content enough to let his attentions wash over her like a warm sea. Nothing like this had been in her thoughts when she came to Agadir. It had happened within two days, like a flash of lightning, like an earth tremor.

They had stopped once on the way home. Just after they had left the orange plantations and the olive groves and come out upon the plain where the argan trees grew, Matthew braked because he saw a large obstacle in his path. At first he thought in the heat haze that it was an animal, then he saw it was a rock. If he had driven into it it would have wrecked his front wheels.

They both got out and looked around. They stood in a hot windless silence. At first Matthew was cautious, wondering if this were a booby trap, with a dozen wild beggars waiting to spring out and rob them and steal their car. But there was nobody. Nor was there much cover for anyone to hide. The only place of concealment was a craggy bluff about twenty yards from the road, red sandstone, with a few wispy clusters of vegetation clinging to its side. The boulder in the road was of red sandstone. Looking up, it was possible to imagine that it had been dislodged from somewhere near the top and had rolled down, shedding dust and bits of rock, until it came to a stop in the middle of the road. There it stood, uncompromising and very large and blocking their way. But who had dislodged it? There were no robbers; there were no tittering children.

Matthew went across and shoved at the rock. It was movable – with effort. In any case where it stood it was a hazard to traffic. Matthew looked up and down. There was no traffic. But sooner or later would come a bus. He heaved at the side of the rock and was able to topple it over. He heaved it again: this was more difficult for its largest side was now downwards. But he did it.

Now he could get past. But a bus could not. His sense of civic responsibility was not normally great, but he heaved a couple more times and the boulder was no longer a menace to travellers. He dusted his hands, rubbing off the clinging, cloying reddish dust and looked round again. Nothing but the hot windless silence.

Nadine was standing a few yards from the car, hands behind back, staring across the plain. He came up with her.

‘Thing must have just rolled down,' he said. ‘ Unless some wild kids did it for fun and ran away. Anyway, we can drive on now.'

She said: ‘The goats have all gone.'

‘Yes, I suppose they have. Maybe it's too hot for them in the mornings.'

‘It was morning yesterday.'

He looked around. ‘That's true.'

‘No birds either. It's … lonely.'

He did not speak but put an arm lightly round her.

She said: ‘Look over there – towards Agadir.'

The landscape was so level that it disappeared into the shimmering distance, but Matthew could see a dark cloud, covering a third of the sky, over towards the sea.

She shivered.

‘You can't be cold,' he said.

She smiled. ‘You have that old English saying: “ Somebody must have stood on my grave.”'

‘You know English too well.'

‘I lived there for two years when I was eighteen, nineteen. In Windsor.'

‘As a guest of the Queen?'

‘She was unaware of my existence.'

‘She didn't know what she was missing.'

Nadine frowned at the sky. ‘Do you think there will be a storm?'

‘It was brooding like that when we left.'

‘I know.'

He said: ‘Are you psychic?'

She shook her head. ‘I just feel an oppression which – which isn't at Taroudant.'

‘Do you want to go back?'

‘I certainly do. On Thursday.'

‘Not now? Not reverse right round and go back?'

She looked at him. ‘ You know it wouldn't do, Matthew. It's only two more days there – three nights. Maybe a thunderstorm will clear the air.'

‘So long as you don't change your mind.'

‘No, I won't. Not over that.'

‘Oh, well. It was worth a try. In we get.'

They returned to the car. He did not at once start the engine.

She said: ‘What are you looking at?'

‘You.'

‘Well … I suppose I cannot complain.'

‘Nor can I.'

After a few seconds she said: ‘Drive on, Matthew.'

He put his hand to the key but did not turn it. ‘Good moments in life are rare.'

‘Yes … yes. Perhaps there will be others.'

‘Many others,' he said.

There was not a sound outside. Only a total hot silence.

‘Drive on, Matthew. Let's get in before the storm.'

Lee and Letty went on the beach quite early, bathed, walked, bathed again. They sat at one of the little kiosks sipping Campari sodas.

They had both slept restlessly after the events of the night. Just as day was breaking he heaved up on his elbow and looked for her, then realized that sometime afterwards he had gone back to his own room. He did not knock on her door until nearly nine, when he found her already dressed and eating breakfast on the veranda. They exchanged commonplace words, polite, casual, a little forced.

Just as they were leaving he said: ‘Letty, about last night …' but she shook her head.

‘Not now, Lee, please.'

He did not know whether he ought to feel pleased or remorseful about the outcome of the night, but he knew precisely what he did feel – which was damned triumphant. At Idlewild airport, while waiting to meet Letty, he had wandered into the airport bookshop and bought himself a sex manual. He had read it surreptitiously in quiet moments of their trip, and last night he had put into practice some of its advice. It had worked to such good effect that his own sensations had been heightened. His experience as a seducer was scanty, and he was massively elated that he had done so well. He felt thirty years younger.

On the beach they did not mention last night, nor at the café. Her face was composed, unresponsive, a little clouded. For the moment he was content. Often he felt people talked too much, analysed too much. It was one of his own failings.

The beach was busy this morning. Two football games were in progress, and more people than usual, it seemed, were walking and strolling about in the warm air. It was a pretty scene. The man with the camels came up, offering them a ride at a reduced rate, but they smilingly refused. Silk blouses, jewellery, daggers and rugs were also offered from time to time.

Because they were on the beach they hardly noticed the earth tremor, which took place at about midday. The table gave a shudder and someone shouted in the café behind, that was all. Lee remarked that he had read somewhere that Agadir had been built on a rock fault, so he supposed one had to suffer these little inconveniences. They got up together and walked unhurriedly in to lunch. Once or twice he took her hand, but there was no returning clasp so he allowed it to slip away.

Over lunch he asked her to marry him. She gently refused.

‘May I ask why – after last night?'

‘Because as I said at the time it was just something – separate.'

‘To me it was very special.'

She sipped at her wine.

‘… We are both married.'

He made a gesture. ‘In the circumstances that can hardly be looked on as an obstacle.'

‘It would not work out, Lee. We do not come of the same world. I … I am not at all ashamed of my family – indeed, I am proud of them – but among the – the old families of Boston and Massachusetts – and you belong to such a one – the standards are still quite rigid. Through you I have come to know many of your friends. They accept me as a bridge player but I would never be invited to join their Club. If you married me they would laugh.'