Lace (45 page)

“Tonight we have orders not to open the gates,” said the sentry, uncertain.

“Soldier,” Abdullah commanded. “It is I, your King. Advance so you may see that it is indeed your King who wishes to pass.”

Slowly the sentry moved forward, still uncertain, and peered into the car. He immediately stiffened to the salute upon recognizing Abdullah’s impassive face, the dark eyes staring through
him, then he ran to unbar the gates, shouting to the sentry on the other side to do likewise.

After they had pushed the heavy gates back against the walls and secured them, two of Abdullah’s men jumped out to replace the sentries, who were silently motioned into the second car.
Both vehicles shot forward toward the Semira barracks.

Light was just dawning as the two vehicles sped toward the main entrance of the low, brick-built barracks. Already trucks were lumbering slowly from the huge inner barrack square, out through
the three arched exits. Abdullah’s two vehicles jerked to a stop outside the first gate. All doors were thrown open and all occupants of the cars, except Abdullah and one driver, sprang to
the ground, their guns at the ready. The two officers marched briskly up to the surprised sentries and halted the stream of trucks to allow Abdullah’s car to drive into the courtyard.

The car stopped against the inner wall and Abdullah’s escort immediately surrounded the car, while their King leaped onto the roof of the vehicle. Wearing the impressive scarlet
kaffiyeh
of the Palace Guard, he looked a brave and fierce figure as he announced that he, their rightful King, had come to lead his men against all traitors.

There was a burst of cheering as swarthy soldiers ran to his car and surrounded it. Fierce, black-bearded, hawk-nosed faces were upturned to his: delighted shouts rang out: scimitars were
flourished. It was at least five minutes before Abdullah could quell the roars of delight and continue with his speech.

“All army personnel are to obey my orders only, issued from my mouth alone and not passed through officers or NCOs,” he shouted. “No one is to leave the barracks until disloyal
officers have been arrested! I now declare a state of emergency, during which my army—led by me—will assume sole control of the country.”

After further shouts of support, Abdullah continued, “Parliament will be dissolved and the Constitution suspended until order prevails in our land! All political meetings are banned and
from tonight there will be a dawn-to-dusk curfew throughout the land. Until further notice, no political speakers will be allowed on the radio.” More cries of approval, and then Abdullah
roared, “Any rioting crowds will be immediately dispersed by mounted troops with tear gas, and anyone who erects barricades or tries to stone my troops from rooftops will be shot on
sight!”

Half an hour after entering the barracks, Abdullah held a staff conference, after which he ordered his entire army to remain in barracks or camp and expect a visit from the King.

Nearly all the plotters turned out to be senior officers; very few NCOs and no rank and file seemed to have been involved. To Abdullah’s lasting bitterness, the chief plotters were the
commander-in-chief of the army, two other generals and also three members of his Inner Council of Five, including the new prime minister. This was a greater blow than he had expected.

That afternoon, at the Royal Palace of Semira, the King summoned a meeting of the remaining two members of the Inner Council as well as all army officers above the rank of major. The murmur of
voices in the great cool hall was hushed as the throb, throb, throb of the drums was heard outside.

Suddenly, King Abdullah appeared in the arched doorway. This was a very different figure from the fierce, scarlet-cloaked soldier-leader who had stood on the roof of the car that morning, legs
astride, brandishing a scimitar that flashed in the rays of the rising sun. Wearing an immaculate white ceremonial uniform with gold epaulettes, Abdullah moved slowly forward, a ruler rather than a
leader.

Two men stood silent on the topmost terrace of the palace, looking down over the white rooftops of Sydon. The sun, an orange orb, was sinking below the horizon; above the dark
sea, the sky was streaked with orange and yellow. Suliman risked a respectful grin. “That went well, Sire.”

“Yes. Please arrange to have the former prime minister executed in three days’ time, and also any of the other political plotters who haven’t already fled to Syria, where they
will no doubt continue to conspire against me.”

“It is wise to take all possible precautions, Sire.”

Abdullah watched the sun disappear and the sky fade. He reached a decision. “That reminds me, will you please invite El Gawali here as fast as possible. To arrange the marriage. I
can’t put it off any longer. I need sons.”

C
HRIST
,
WHAT A
noise! She wouldn’t answer the door! . . .

Pagan decided to ignore the door knocker and then whoever it was would go away. She was about to put her head under the pillow when she heard a female voice singing, “Happy birthday to
you! Happy birthday to you!” The knocker was being thumped in rhythm with the song.
Christ
, her head . . . surely . . . Could that be
Kate’s
voice?

Pagan opened her eyes, sat up, shut her eyes again, staggered out of bed, opened her eyes, picked her dressing gown off the floor, tried to put it on, couldn’t find the sleeves, threw it
down, pulled the bed quilt around her, then carefully felt her way down the stairs and opened the door. Above a sheaf of sunny daffodils, she saw Kate’s smiling face.

Kate stopped smiling when she saw Pagan’s red-rimmed eyes, her puffy face and shaggy hair. She stepped forward and hugged Pagan as hard as she could. God, the smell of her breath. . .
.

“Come inside quickly, it’s cold. Why were you singing?”

“Because it’s almost your birthday.”

“Is it?” said Pagan indifferently. “When
is
the twenty-seventh? Good God, I’ll be thirty. . . . I think it’s thirty; if this is 1962 I’ll be
thirty.” She led Kate down the stone-flagged passage into the sitting room. “That means I’ve been living down here for over eight years. Seems only yesterday I moved in. . . .
Thank you, I’ll stick them in a vase. . . . How did you know I was here?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to see Kate, now removing the smart, khaki tweed jacket of her Mary Quant
trouser suit.

Kate glanced at the sofa covered with dog hair then sat on a wooden Windsor chair. “I met that woman Phillippa last week. You remember, the big, bossy one with the fuzzy red hair that we
used to play bridge with in Cairo? She told me about your divorce so I phoned your mother straightaway.”

For years Kate had blamed Pagan for stealing her fiancé. But Phillippa had told Kate the gossip that most of Cairo society had known for years and thought Kate knew—the Byzantine
subterfuge by which Robert had parted the two friends. It was Robert who had been traitorous, not Pagan. Now that Kate was happily married, she had immediately responded with remorse and guilt to
the fact that she had been tricked into losing her childhood friend.

“I saw Phillippa about a week ago and I came as soon as I could, darling. I thought I’d surprise you. You were quite right to divorce Robert. He was my idea of a prize
shit.”

“You might have told me.”

There was an uneasy pause and then Kate burst into tears. “I can’t bear to see you like this.”

“Don’t
you
start,” said Pagan. “I’m perfectly happy . . . I don’t spray tears all over the place like you and Maxine . . . d’you remember, it was
always either giggles or sobs? Can’t think why women cry so much . . . I’ll see if there’s any tea.”

She went to the kitchen, had a quick nip from the vodka bottle and eventually produced a tray of ill-assorted china with some old ginger biscuits and marmalade.

They chatted about nothing much for ten minutes, then Kate asked gently, “Why have you hidden yourself away like this, Pagan? Why don’t any of your old friends in London know that
you’re here?”

“Because I didn’t
tell
them, darling. . . . I simply didn’t want to see anybody after that three-parties-a-night life in Cairo.”

She gave a sad laugh. “I felt so ashamed of myself and Mama was obviously ashamed of me as well. . . . Nobody of our school year has been divorced.” She poured tea from a blue tin
teapot. “I just wanted to hide from people. . . . A few chums got in touch with Mama, or wrote to me suggesting a visit, but I never answered the letters. . . . The fact is, I never knew how
I would react to anyone.” She sighed. “I looked normal on the outside but inside my feelings were bubbling. If anybody spoke to me in a kind voice, I wanted to crumple up and cry.
Idiotic, wasn’t it? . . . I used to get a lump in my throat and couldn’t answer them back. So I avoided talking by avoiding people. I only spoke to the villagers when it couldn’t
be helped and I dashed upstairs and hid when I heard the postman’s bicycle bell.” She added milk to the cup with a shaking hand.

Kate was stunned by the change in Pagan. Her speech was rambling and disconnected. How had that confident, vibrant creature changed into this confused, nervous wreck?

“Don’t you see
anyone
, Pagan?” she asked.

Pagan shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve become a bit of a hermit, except for occasionally seeing Mama. . . . One day I heard Mama explain to one of her patients that I was a recluse and
that’s why I talk to myself. That gave me a laugh.” She handed a cracked pink cup to Kate. “Matter of fact I’ve never understood what’s wrong with talking to yourself;
your jokes are always laughed at . . . you always win your arguments . . . it demonstrates a happy degree of self-acceptance.” She sipped from her earthenware mug. “You don’t have
to finish that biscuit, it’s about six months old. . . . Don’t think I was unhappy. I had Buster for company and every day for the first six months I woke up and, oh, it was just utter
bliss to see that Robert wasn’t there on the next pillow. I’m comfortable enough here, listening to the radio and reading. I’m afraid it’s not very tidy at the moment
because Mrs. Hocken broke her ankle falling over a puppy, so she hasn’t cleaned for a couple of months.”

“Don’t you still ride?”

“Mama sold the horses and the stables are now massage booths and a gymnasium. . . . More tea?” She held out another ginger biscuit to Buster but dropped it.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Pagan said, “Oh, dear, why weren’t we sent into this life with an instruction manual? My trouble is that I don’t seem to learn from my
mistakes. I don’t just
repeat
my mistakes, I make
new
ones. . . . When I look back, I suppose everything started to go wrong in Switzerland. Since then, everything I got
involved with looked wonderful to begin with and ended in disaster. . . . Now I’m just permanently tired. Tired of everything. Tired of failure. Tired of life. So, I retired.”

She put her hands behind her head and gazed up at the ceiling. Kate quickly slipped her ginger biscuit into her handbag. There was another pause, then Pagan said, “That’s enough of
me. You’ve now heard everything that I’ve done here for the last eight years. Nothing. . . . Unlike old Maxine. I sometimes see photographs of her in newspapers—not that I often
read them, I just listen to the nine o’clock news and thank God that none of it is about me. . . . Amazing how old Maxine’s sort of zoomed into being a glamour puss. One of the movers
and shakers as they say. . . . Suppose the rest of us could be described as the shaken and the still shaking.”

Pagan stretched her arms and yawned. “Now what’s happened to
you
in the last ten years, Kate?”

“I was heartbroken over Robert,” Kate said, and sipped her tea, “although it seems ludicrous now. After that, I went out on the same old round with anyone who asked
me—anything rather than stay at home. It was parties, parties, parties until I met darling Toby. Then after we were married we had a far more quiet life.” She took another sip.
“But let’s not talk about me this evening.” She finished her lukewarm tea and put down the cup. “How about walking up to Trelawney? It’s such a lovely day. The woods
are full of bluebells.”

“No need to be in such a hurry,” Pagan said, picking up the tea tray. “If you wait long enough to clean the car it always rains. Old Arabic proverb.” She carried the tray
toward the kitchen and the vodka bottle that had been quickly hidden under a tea cozy. Whoever he was, Kate’s husband could obviously afford Gucci shoes and a Hermès handbag, Pagan
noticed.

While Pagan was banging away in the kitchen, Kate surveyed the living room—books piled on the floor, old newspapers piled on the chairs, half-empty teacups, a table covered with ring marks
and cigarette scars, overflowing ashtrays, dog hair everywhere. Her first thought was to clean up Pagan and then the cottage; it could be a charming little home. Kate’s second thought was to
see Pagan’s mother before taking any action. Why hadn’t
she
done anything? The bloody woman was supposed to specialise in drunks, wasn’t she?

They walked up the path through the woods, admiring the bluebells as they went. Past a mass of dark green rhododendrons, they crossed the steel cattle grid that supposedly stopped the deer from
getting onto the main road. They climbed slightly uphill, over a muddy field of buttercups and then across the well-trimmed lawn that surrounded the beautiful stone house. In front of the
conservatory was a ten-foot-high, curved, see-through, plastic shelter. “The new, heated outdoor swimming pool,” Pagan explained. They walked through the conservatory, now filled with
glistening chrome—the bicycles and huge mechanical rubber belts for massaging the buttocks. Once past the rows of pink-faced guests, cycling hard to nowhere, they went into the hall and
climbed the six-foot-wide, purple-carpeted stairs that led to Pagan’s mother’s study.

Mrs. Trelawney looked up from her desk, over her hornrimmed glasses. “Nice to see you, Kate,” she said, as if she’d last seen Kate yesterday. “You haven’t changed a
bit.” With neat movements she removed her glasses, folded them and placed them in a crocodile case. They shook hands; the marmoreal temperature of Mrs. Trelawney’s hand matched her
welcome. She rang a bell and they drank lapsang suchong from rose-decorated Minton china. Then Kate was shown around Trelawney.