The Lighthearted Quest (8 page)

“Dictated,” said Julia angrily. “All official rubbish!” She picked up the envelope from the sofa beside her, intending to crumple it up and throw it into the wastepaper-basket which she had forced Andrews to extract for her from the Chief Steward—she felt a need to crumple and throw something—when she noticed that there was another sheet in the envelope; this was written in Geoffrey's hand.

“Oh, darling, you know what I was thinking of that last evening—
you!
I do wish you hadn't gone away; London really
is
a desert without your beautiful blank foolish face in it. And anyhow, even if you do find your second or third cousin, or whatever he is, I doubt if he will come home quite as soon as you or his family would wish—Edina may have to sacrifice her magnificent salary, so much larger than mine, for a bit longer! But whatever you do don't start your Irish bank-clerk
chum snooping round—I do implore you to leave the whole thing alone, from the banking angle.”

“One for me, one for the file!” said Julia contemptuously. Poor Geoffrey—he was so frightful when he went all official. “Divulge!” she muttered disgustedly, looking at the typewritten letter again. Then she re-read the P.S. Taken together, the two letters made her smell a rat. If Geoffrey didn't like Reeder's friend in the bar at Tangier,
sabe todo,
he knew a good deal more than he was willing to say, even to her. Now quite intelligent young women like Julia often develop a peculiar and really irrational remorselessness towards young men who are their self-professed slaves, but with whom they are not yet in love; she was unreasonably vexed with Mr. Consett for his official caution and propriety. She sat in her snug little cabin, that she had become so fond of, smoking and thinking. Geoffrey was of course a complete clot to imagine that she wouldn't try to make Paddy Lynch find out all he could;
he
wasn't the Bank of England, and nor was she—her job was to find Colin. But the whole business about the B. of E. was most peculiar. Whatever Colin's present occupation was it probably wasn't smuggling—Reeder must have been wrong about that—since it had official sanction; indeed someone at the Bank must know a good deal about it if they could put Geoffrey in a position to hint to her, in the privacy of his P.S., that Colin probably wouldn't come home at once. What could it be?

Anyhow, she decided, glancing at her watch, she had better take some steps about contacting Paddy, even if she did in the end decide to use a certain discretion in tackling him; and also find out from the Captain how long they would have in “Casa”.

At that point there was a tap on her door, and Andrews, as he frequently did, entered without waiting for any “Come in”.

“Car's come for you, Miss,” he said.

“What car?”

“Couldn't say, I'm sure. I was just told to tell you that the car's waiting for you on the dockside.”

“Thank you, Andrews. Say I'll be there in five minutes.”

She stepped out on deck for a moment, to make up her mind about the temperature. It was not yet ten, and there was a light breeze off the sea, but it was already getting gently warm; by midday, in a city, it would probably be hot. She exchanged her woolly for a blouse, her brown shoes for green sandals, matching her broad-brimmed felt hat—that most useful of travelling companions, which had crossed the Bay rolled up into a green cone among her stockings; throwing her pale tweed overcoat across her arm, she went on deck in search of Captain Blyth.

She found him still in conversation with the agent, leaning on the rail watching the cars and tractors being unloaded.

“Oh, Captain dear, someone's sent a car for me. That probably means hospitality—so how long have we got here?”

“Well, we shan't be sailing till tomorrow, anyhow.”

“Oh, grand—a night ashore! What fun.”

“That's what the crew always think at Cahssa,” said the Captain. “And they come aboard again at three in the morning as green as grass, and plucked clean as chickens!—and all they say is that they had
fun”
He spoke in his usual gentle accents of this aspect of human folly in his crew.

Mr. Harris, the Chief Steward, whom Julia had hardly seen since her first evening on board, when he pinched the bottle of Mr. Reeder's soda for her, now came bustling up rather pompously, holding out a note to the Captain.

“This has come for Miss Probyn, Sir,” he said.

“Well, give it to her, then,” said Captain Blyth flatly—Harris, looking foolishly formal, handed the envelope to Julia.

“Oh, will you excuse me?”

The note was from Mr. Lynch. He would be busy at the bank till one, but was sending his car and chauffeur to show her the sights of Casablanca during the morning, and to bring her to his house for lunch. “Ali speaks tolerable French. The
Librairie Farrère is the best place for picture post-cards. It will be uncommonly nice to see you again.”

Julia said to the Captain—

“I'm going ashore for lunch. I'll be back before tomorrow morning, anyhow.”

“O.K. Don't get shot up!” replied Captain Blyth tranquilly.

“Which is Mr. Lynch's car?” Julia asked Harris. There were two cars near the foot of the gangway, a small black Ford and a beige one considerably larger than the sea-green saloons which were continually being swung up out of the bowels of the ship.

“Oh, the black one's mine,” said the agent, hearing her question. So Julia ran down the gangway and got into the beige car, the chauffeur politely holding the door open for her.

Ali was a neat little Arab with a flattened hook nose, a small Chaplin moustache, and dark brown eyes full of a rather sceptical intelligence, indeed his whole expression conveyed a not unfriendly scepticism; he wore a trim chauffeur's jacket over baggy dark-blue trousers, and a red fez. Julia told him to go to the Librairie Farrère. This was a huge bookshop in the business quarter among the tall blocks of buildings which made the streets look like canyons of golden sandstone. Here she turned over masses of picture post-cards, mostly displaying palm-trees, camels, and views of Marrakesh, none of which seemed very appropriate for despatch from this African version of New York; however she bought a few, and then realised that she had no Moroccan currency—whatever that might be. It proved to be a special African type of franc, and the grey-haired woman who served her had no hesitation in changing a
£
1 note—however she only got 800-odd francs for it.

“Not a thousand?” asked Julia, in her excellent French.

“Ah no, Mademoiselle—not in the Maroc. A thousand is the
French
rate.”

Back in the car, Julia learned with astonished amusement in what Ali's idea of the sights of Casablanca consisted. He drove her briefly through the Mella, the Jewish quarter, which was too tumble-down and dirty even to be picturesque, with low one-storey houses and many street markets; but thereafter they proceeded to visit the hospitals of the city, which stood more on the outskirts, in large airy tree-shaded avenues. He took her to nine in all, ending up with the Animal Dispensary! “Hospital for Arab Men,” Ali would say complacently, pulling up before high iron gates and indicating a series of modern buildings in spacious grounds full of flowering shrubs and trees; or “Hospital for Arab Children”. There were hospitals for Europeans too, of course, but the little chauffeur made the longest pause of all outside “Hospital for Arab Women”. He pointed out to Julia the Moorish trained nurses, unveiled and in European dress, but not in uniform, passing in and out through the gates, their up-to-date tartan-covered bags of medical appliances strapped to the carriers of their bicycles, explaining how they went into Arab homes, giving piqûres, applying dressings, administering medicines and treatment. “Do much good,” said Ali, with such conviction that Julia was considerably impressed; she sat in the car for some time watching these lively hatless girls, their modern dress and hairdo contrasting so strangely with their dark-skinned un-European faces, chatting at the big gates to numerous Moorish women, presumably their patients—the latter veiled to the eyes and smothered in voluminous white draperies which, as Edith Wharton said long ago, caused them to resemble nothing so much as animated bundles of washing.

After the Animal Dispensary, however, she struck. Among the post-cards she had bought was one of Marshal Lyautey unveiling a memorial plaque to Charles de Foucauld, and she wanted to see it; she had what she herself would have called ‘rather a thing' for that strange being, the cavalry officer turned White Father, whose missionary efforts had been so
wholly unavailing, his political effect on the pacification of North Africa so great. She showed Ali the picture and bade him take her there. The Foucauld monument stands in a particularly busy avenue; Ali approached it from the wrong side and pulled up level with it, but across the road.

“Wait,” said Julia; she hopped out, threaded her way through the traffic and stood quietly for a few moments in front of the memorial, behind its small hedge of bushes. It seemed to bring her monkish hero—so unlike all the pseudo-romantic business of the novelists who write up the Foreign Legion—strangely near. Julia was seldom impulsive, except when moved by temper, but now she did an odd thing: she knelt down on the dusty gravel and said a prayer for the repose of the soul of the saintly eccentric. Ali eyed her curiously when she returned to the car.

Casablanca in recent years has become a zoned city, carefully controlled by the Municipal Council. Factories may only be erected on the northern side—and only factories; impossible to get a permit to build a house there. Out to the south on gently rising ground lies the residential zone, spreading all the time—hotels, some blocks of flats, but mostly villas, of all shapes and sizes, in pretty gardens full of flowering shrubs; in that climate everything grows so fast that this modern quarter has not in the least the unfinished aspect of a new garden suburb in England—shrubs rise from the ground practically with the speed of the Hindu magician's mangrove-tree, while creepers with exotic blossoms smother the walls almost before the plaster is dry. Here no shops may be built; an impassioned petition from the residents was necessary even to get a permit for a petrol-station to be opened for local use.

Out to this pleasant district Ali proceeded to drive Julia, along avenues of older, larger, more sedate houses; she gazed about her with a lively interest, veiled by her customary vacant expression. Paddy Lynch's house was a medium-sized villa in the new quarter, covered in flowering roses, climbing
geraniums, and some creeper with dark-green leaves and flowers precisely the colour of tangerine-peel; Paddy himself, lanky, black-haired, with lake-grey eyes set in an Irish smudge of dark eyelashes, was standing waiting for her at the top of a flight of concrete steps—as the car pulled up he ran down to greet her.

“Julia! How splendid! No need to ask how you are—you're radiant!”

“Dear Paddy,” said Julia, giving him a cool kiss. “This is so nice.”

“Nita's away, such a shame; she'd have loved to see you.”

“Why?”

“Oh, a baby—and though a Frenchman produces such splendid pasteurised milk for us all, she thought she'd rather have it in England, and see if she can nurse it herself. But come in.”

“Good idea, nursing,” said Julia, as her host led her into a large sun-filled room; at the further end, through an archway, was another room with a table set for lunch.

Over drinks—“What on earth are you doing in Morocco?” Mr. Lynch asked.

“Sunshine—and articles for my medium papers.”

“Why aren't you staying here? I gather you're going on to Tangier. You ought really to stop and do Marrakesh and Rabat and all that; you could stay with me and I'd drive you over for a week-end.”

“I'd love to do that later on; I'm all booked at Tangier now, hotel and everything. Tell me, Paddy, how are things here now?” Julia asked, with a mental eye on her articles.

“Oh, very quiet—there hasn't been an assassination for at least ten days.”

Julia laughed.

“Well, that's quiet for Casa,” said Mr. Lynch, laughing too. “By the way, what time do you sail?”

“Only tomorrow morning.”

“Why not come and stay here tonight, then?”

“Oh, no, Paddy dear, thank you so much—unpack and re-pack, so exhausting. But I'll lounge in your nice garden this afternoon, if I may, and have supper with you if I'm asked.”

“Of course you're asked. Only it will be a bit late because I have to go to a cocktail party this evening. I know—why don't you come too?”

Julia made a small face.

“I feel rather like Sir Anthony Eden about cocktail parties. Will it be diplomatic or amusing?”

“Well, the Binghams are nice people—he's in the Banque Régie Turque.”

Julia managed to repress a start—when she spoke it was with a real drawl.

“Oh very well—anything to oblige. But I shall have to go back to the boat and change,” she said, with a glance at her coat and skirt.

“Need you? You look perfect.” She nodded vigorously. “Very well; Ali can take you down about six, and bring you back to pick me up. What did Ali show you, by the way?
Splendeurs et misères de Casablanca?
That's the classic round.”

“No; he showed me nothing but hospitals,” said Julia, and related her morning. Mr. Lynch laughed, but this curious form of sight-seeing aroused his interest.

“That's a rather significant tribute to the French,” he said. “Hospitals and after-care are one of their real achievements in Morocco. It's like drawing teeth, of course, to make the Arabs go to a hospital or a clinic the first time; but once they've been nothing will keep them away. Ali's wife nearly died with her last baby but two, and I simply bunged her into the
Hôpital pour Femmes Arabes
by main force—now he won't hear of her having a child at home. It's a most frightful pity, this muck-up about the Sultan, because the French are doing such a superb job here. Ah, here's Mahomet and the lunch.”