When the Siren Calls

• When the Siren Calls
  
• Foreword
  
• Midpoint
  

WHEN THE SIREN CALLS

Smashwords Edition

Book One of the Siren Calls Trilogy

Copyright © 2012 Tom Barry

The moral right of the author has been asserted. This book is a work of fiction and all characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved.

This book is also available in paperback from all good book retailers and direct from the publisher, Troubador Publishing Ltd: ISBN 978 1780883 106.

Tom Barry’s debut novel is the critically acclaimed When the Siren Calls, Book One of the Siren Calls Trilogy.

First published as a student, he spent twenty years as a management consultant and now writes full-time. Married with three children, he lives near London and counts Tuscany, the setting for this story, amongst his favourite places.

Contact him at: www.tombarrywrites.com

Praise for When The Siren Calls:

“When The Siren Calls is a sexy, seductive book. There is love, betrayal, infidelity and unexpected twists. There is so much going on, it's like watching a really good movie. It’s brilliant.” - "Books and Reviews“

"The thinking woman's Fifty Shades" - "Female First."

"A very well-conceived story with interesting characters and a tantalizing pace. I couldn’t ask for more than that.” – Jennifer Custer, Literary Agent, A.M. Heath

“ A pacy, racy, romance novel that simultaneously feels like a critique of a particular social scene. The prose is very strong technically, and the characters are comprehensive and believable. Isobel is an effective and sympathetic protagonist, and her story is compelling.” – Tom Fletcher, author, ‘The Leaping’

““[The sex scenes in When the Siren Calls] are vital, pacy, and never gross or uncomfortable – as the annual Bad Sex Awards shows, this is rare in fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed the way the strands come together as the novel pushes towards climax." – Matthew Branton, author, ’The Love Parade’.

“A sexually-unfulfilled wife in a tricky situation and a handsome stranger coming to her rescue. Give me good old escapism any time. -” Alana Woods, author, ‘Imbroglio’.

“I loved this book! I am recommending it to all my friends who love smart, sensual stories with twists that keep you guessing.” – 'Erin Potter, Shamrock Editing.'

“This story grabs you by the throat from the start. The opening scene is every woman’s nightmare.” -'Kathleen Patel, Amazon Books.'

“Wow- Lady Chatterley meets Christian Grey! It’s exciting to find a new writer who tells life like it is, but with a delectable twist of romance, sex and humour.” - Stephanie J Hale, author, ‘Millionaire Women, Millionaire You.’

“Witty, often deliciously self-conscious and smattered with the best sort of irony, When the Siren Calls is both seductive and funny. If ‘humourotica’ is a genre then Tom Barry is its king; if it does not yet exist then he is its creator.” – 'Book Connoisseur.'

Praise for Tom Barry

“If ‘humourotica’ is a genre then Tom Barry is its king; if it does not yet exist then he is its creator.” – Book Connoisseur

“Tom Barry has a keen eye for detail, a strong sense of irony and a good nose for unearthing what lies beneath the civilised facades we present to the world. It’s exciting to find a new writer who tells life like it is, but with a delectable twist of romance, sex and humour.” – Stephanie J. Hale, The Oxford Literacy Consultancy

“Tom Barry follows in the footsteps of the great Irish storytellers.” – Ré Ó Laighléis, author, ‘Hooked’

www.tombarrywrites.com

Foreword

What is this Maya we call Love? Why are we compelled to spend lifetimes in desperate pursuit of her, only to be left churning in her wake?

“Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.”

— Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

One

Grasping hands tore at Isobel’s clothing and scraped her skin as she forced her way forward. She swung round to face the seething pack, the speed of her movement causing her handbag — too oversized, too glittering for these dusty lanes — to sweep with her in a defensive arc.

“Go away, allez, allez!” she shouted, trying to sound authoritative as the street urchins began to melt away.

Free from the pressing bodies, she wove deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of endless, identical alleyways, slipping between the sacks and the stalls with a serpentine ease that masked her increasing panic. She felt as if every eye were upon her, eyes shrouded by swathes of headgear or set within sun-dried faces, all disapproving, some accusing. Every turn revealed idle and cocky gangs of youths who straddled their cycles, observing her distress with knowing smirks.

Isobel looked for an opening, any way out that might lead her back to the square and return her to some kind of safety and normality. But every likely exit from this terrible maze was blocked with the knee-high beggars who had followed the scent of her like sharks, ever since she had taken pity on a tiny girl who, with swimming eyes, had pleaded for a dirham. But as they closed in to encircle her, there were no more pleas, only orders.

“You give dirhams!” they called at her, chanting their demand like a mantra.

“Yes, dirhams!” she cried in a sudden and reckless change of tack. “Dirhams for whoever can show me the way back to the square.”

She pulled a single note from her purse and waved it before the outstretched hands. But the sight of money only fed the frenzy and the chorus of orphaned voices grew louder and more demanding, as ragged forms crashed against her legs and threatened to topple her with their combined force.

A barking voice cut through the chaos around her and her pursuers leapt back as if scalded. The sound of a wicker cane smacking against flesh was followed by shrieks of pain and the startled waifs scattered like stray cats. Isobel turned towards her saviour, overwhelmed with gratitude and close to tears. She guessed he was in his mid-forties, unmistakably Arabic, clean-shaven, and smartly dressed in Western clothes, his polo sporting one of the many designer labels that seemed to adorn even the cheapest t-shirts.

“They mean no harm, the children,” said the man. “Do not think badly of them, perhaps they already saw you were a kind woman? The children, they see it in the face, if you are kind. So you must be very kind to attract so many children.”

“Thank you,” said Isobel, her racing pulse beginning to slow, “but I think it was the few coins I gave a little girl for sweets that was my mistake.”

“A mistake perhaps, but also the sign of a good heart, no?”

Isobel smiled at the compliment.

“You wish to go to the square I think?” asked the man.

“Yes, yes, I do. Is it near?”

“If you know where it is, it is near, if not…” the man shrugged, “if not it can be very, very far. Perhaps you will let me show you the way. No one will bother you if you are not alone.”

Isobel hesitated. “If you are sure you don’t mind. I said I would meet my husband there.”

The man motioned toward the space behind the open shutters.

“Please, wait inside for a few moments. I must get my son for he will mind the store. Please, this way, just a few moments.”

Isobel idly perused the wares as she waited. Her appetite for shopping, if she ever had one, was exhausted. The glimmering trinkets in her bags were useless trifles, bought to justify her headstrong decision to come to the souk alone, a means to make her point to Peter when she returned. She checked her watch. It was clear that “a few moments” meant something other than what the words implied. Still, this was Marrakech, where life still seemed to follow the movement of the sun rather than the hands of the clock. She brushed her fingers along the reams of intricately adorned fabric with their brilliant shades of orange and blue, savouring the space around her and revelling in the silence broken only by the whining of moths around the turquoise lamp suspended from the ceiling.

Isobel noticed the lengthening shadows, and looked again at her wrist. There was a limit to how long a good deed could be considered a debt. She put aside the cloth she was admiring; she would just have to make her own way to the square. She was confident that her journey from the square had been upward, so the way back must be downward. As she pulled down her sunglasses like a visor to signal that no eye contact would be entertained, the silence was ruptured by the man’s voice, he had returned — a twenty-year-old version of himself in tow.

“I am sorry to keep you, kind lady, but my son, he must close his shop, and before he can close it he must put away his fruit. This is my son, Sharif, and I am Ali.”

Isobel turned to the young man. Putting away his fruit must also have involved boiling the kettle, as he carried a silver tray with a long, curve-spouted silver pot, and three glasses hardly bigger than egg cups.

“Please let me offer you a refreshment,” said the older man, “it is our tradition and you are an honoured guest.”

Sharif was dressed similarly to his father, except where the older man’s shirt bore the emblem of a crocodile, his son’s bore that of a prancing horse.

“You are in Marrakech for holiday?” asked Ali, who was clearly the talker of the two.

“Just the weekend.”

“So short, so little time. You must not think that all of Marrakech is like the souk, that everyone is like the hungry children. You must return soon. We have much history, beautiful architecture, white sandy beaches. And you will find the Moroccan people very friendly, very welcoming. It is our tradition. I must give you something, a present, to remind you of Morocco.”

“Really,” said Isobel, keen to bring matters to a close, “you have been too kind already.”

“Sharif, a little gift for the lovely lady.”

Sharif seemed to have anticipated his father’s command. He stepped forward, a ring-sized jewellery box between thumb and forefinger.

“It is only a trinket, of no real value to some, but precious to others.”

Sharif opened the box to reveal a blue ceramic pendant on a silver chain. Isobel smiled and began to say thank you but was cut short by arms encircling her neck.

“Sharif will put it on for you, it is tradition,” proclaimed the older man.

The young man’s hands travelled swiftly behind Isobel’s neck. For what seemed a long time, he stood in front of her, their bodies less than a foot apart, his forearms brushing her shoulders, as his fingers worked behind her neck to secure the clasp. Isobel felt the cool stone resting in her cleavage, visible at the opened top of her blouse. She fingered the pendant as she tried to ensure it rested on closed linen.

“I wish that my gift keeps you safe from the evil eye, and that it brings you back to Marrakech,” said Ali, as Sharif retreated to the doorway. “But you must also choose something from my shop that you wish to have, something to wear perhaps. I have beautiful cotton and silk blouses. Kaftans also. You choose.”

Isobel wanted to say that the rescue, the tea, the pendant, and the promised escort to the square were more than enough to bring her back to Morocco, but the need to repay a kindness weighed heavier than the need to get away.