Moroccan Traffic: Send a Fax to the Kasbah Read online

  Among them was Ellwood Pymm. He saw us at once, and came over. ‘Why, will you look who is here!’

  The hounds of the Canadian press and radio wandered after him, their faces vacant with cultural overload. They remembered the vintage car rally and Seb. They patted the Sunbeam and then, ignoring the cries of their conductor, made stolidly for the nearest source of relief and refreshment, taking us with them. Ellwood said, ‘Seb, Wendy sweet baby! Why don’t you come with us on the tour? The port, the fish market, the silversmiths, the spice stalls, the Portuguese artillery platforms, the cedarwood furniture!’ Below the crewcut, his scalp was mahogany: his lump-like features were mottled. In one pocket of his shorts, I could see his Arab phrasebook.

  Colonel Sullivan said, ‘Now who could resist that, my son, except a man who’s just driven all the way from Marrakesh and is medium knackered? Go on into the town. Wendy and I will relax, and have a wander, and join you.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Ellwood Pymm. ‘I thought you’d want to come with us to the harbour. You know, your pal Johnson has a yacht here? Not interested, are we?’

  There was malice you couldn’t miss in the question. Seb Sullivan said, ‘Curious as the next man, but won’t it be under covers? He can’t be using it much.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Ellwood Pymm. ‘When Cupid calls, it’s nice to have somewhere to go. We could leave our visiting cards, so he’ll know that we care.’

  I watched the Colonel changing his mind. If Johnson’s yacht was packed full of call-girls, it would do no harm to have a mass audience. On the other hand, if we let Ellwood’s lot go on their own, they might scare off the prey and we’d lose it. Or her. Or them. When the Canadians moved, we walked to the harbour beside them.

  It was a place Mo Morgan would have wanted to photograph. Guarded by grey, turreted forts it was crammed full of fishing boats, their names painted in Roman and Arabic. Because of the heat, everything had gone into pause. On the quay, men in seaboots and caps sat sewing or pillowed on pink and blue nets, with necklaces of floats lying around them. The unfinished boats on the stocks stood against the noon sun, their open Japanese ribs painted orange. On the water, a skiff laden with men left the ship and poled its way absently somewhere. Beyond the boats I could glimpse a few pleasure craft, jogging a bit as the waves and wind slapped them. Above them soared the two slender masts of a yacht. We walked along, and from a discreet distance, studied her.

  ‘Ketch,’ said Ellwood Pymm. ‘Gaff-rigged, with a bloody big engine. Looked him up. There you are, boys and girls. That’s the Dolly.’

  I have seen yachts on TV. This one was painted gloss white. In the sun, she glistened like Toubkal. Contrary to expectations, she was not wrapped in canvas. Her cockpit with its smart awning and cushions lay invitingly open. Her decks shone unimpeded; her brass and paint glittered. On Johnson’s coach roof, pin-clear to Mr. Pymm’s long-focus lens, a sleeping blonde lay exposing her spine to the sun, a half-full glass and a book at her side. She wore the lower half of an expensive bikini. The click of five cameras disturbed her. She turned. Eight more clicks ensued. She was elegant, tanned, and about thirty-five. She smiled without a hint of dismay and, leaning back on her elbows, called something in English. ‘Jay, you’re an absolute animal. Did you pay them to come?’

  ‘In kind,’ said an unemphatic bass voice I remembered. We turned. Impossibly, behind us on the wharf stood Johnson Johnson in an old shirt and creased bags, a dripping ice cream in each non-painting hand. Behind the bifocals was nothing but resignation. He said, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve only got two. We weren’t expecting a gang. Seb, it’s just up the road. Will you bring some?’

  ‘Ice cream?’ said my rallying Colonel. It was the first time I’d seen him disconcerted. We had left Johnson in Marrakesh painting the royals. This very dawn, we had left him. Yet Johnson had got here before us.

  ‘Unless you’d like anything else,’ Johnson said, walking past us to the foot of the gangplank. ‘You are all coming aboard? Or don’t you want to?’

  He stood and gazed amicably at us all. He looked the way he had in the café: his glasses impervious, his black brows meeting his hair. He had seen me there; now I was sure of it. Ellwood said, ‘If you and the lady don’t mind.’

  ‘Muriel?’ Johnson said. ‘Do you mind?’

  She got up and took the ice cream, her breasts jiggling. She stood and surveyed herself, frowning. She said, ‘I don’t think so. Should I?’

  ‘Not on my account,’ said Seb Sullivan lasciviously.

  She smiled. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Then I don’t suppose Daniel will, either. Do come aboard. Lenny! Oliver!’

  I suppose we had all assumed they were alone. They weren’t. Lenny appeared, an elderly man in a jacket and tie, and was introduced as Dolly’s skipper and steward. Oliver, a charming thug with an upper-class accent, handed fourteen of us on board and helped serve us ice cream, when Colonel Sullivan brought it. Johnson, the perfect host, took time to toss a scarf at his inamorata. ‘Muriel! You’re giving everyone orgasms.’

  Without haste, she wrapped it over her bosom where it clung, noticeably embossed. ‘Jay, I love you,’ she said. Her face was healthy and heart-shaped, and she had blue eyes and dyed lashes and a large, generous mouth smeared with white lipstick. I had seen her before.

  I caught Sullivan by the arm. ‘That woman!’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Not just now, angel.’

  An hour later the guide from ONMT and RAM, trying hard, got his party to leave. Johnson and his girlfriend waved them off from the cockpit. Seb and I lingered, and Ellwood, slowing down, stopped on the quayside to wait for us. Seb ignored him. He said, ‘Sir Robert said you were painting SM at the Palace.’

  The woman Muriel was reclining, her long bare legs on the cockpit cushions. Johnson sat on the wooden edge of the cockpit, his sandshoes planted beside her. ‘And so I should have been,’ he said. ‘Except that Muriel’s husband was called to the Presence, and the painting was cancelled this morning.’ He looked down, and he and the girl exchanged smiles. He said, ‘Of course, you know who Muriel is?’ His glasses inclined towards me.

  I said, ‘I saw her photograph, Mr. Johnson. She’s Mrs. Daniel Oppenheim?’

  ‘She’s Jimmy Auld’s daughter, much more important,’ said Johnson. ‘Muriel is a very young/old family friend, whom we’ve forgiven for marrying a financier. She and Danny spared me two nights from the Football Cup, but alas, they’ll have to go back tomorrow. So what do you plan to do now? Test the markets?’

  Colonel Sullivan, after a second’s hesitation, said that he thought we would indeed tour the markets.

  ‘Do,’ said Johnson. ‘Everything from a cure for the common cold to spells against evil. Though the aphrodisiacs are unreliable, they tell me. What do they tell you, Mr. Pymm?’

  ‘Ellwood, please. They tell me plenty, but I’m a believer in test trials,’ said Ellwood Pymm from the quayside. ‘I sure admire a guy with your track record. What’s the trade like around here?’

  Johnson looked at him. Then he said, ‘It depends on the day of the week. I’m afraid I’m all tuckered out, but your guide would advise you.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Ellwood Pymm with dissatisfaction. ‘But so far their advice has been crap. I’ll maybe go on ahead?’

  ‘You do that,’ said Johnson quite amiably. We watched the other man turn and hurry after his party. The calves of his legs were red with sunburn. Johnson said, ‘Now, who do you think is paying his lawyers?’

  ‘Anyone he can get,’ Colonel Sullivan said. ‘Whatever you happen to be up to, I wouldn’t let Ellwood Pymm know.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Johnson said. ‘You’re having a rest then, from your pals? I don’t blame you. Fancy finding Miss Helmann in Marrakesh.’

  I said, ‘My mother was ill. Sir Robert has been very kind.’

  ‘Wonderful what twenty-four hours in the sun will effect. Look at Ellwood,’ Johnson said. ‘Do you really want to explore the sights with French-sp
eaking Canada? If not, stay and have a bite with us first. Daniel’s delayed; Lenny’s bought far too much and it’s spoiling.’

  Seb Sullivan said, ‘That’s amazingly kind of you, now. I must say it’s tempting.’

  ‘Then do,’ Johnson said. ‘And when the Voice of Canada makes its way back, it can photograph Muriel and Daniel together. It would, perhaps, help to de-mist Mr. Pymm’s camera lenses. Now, what can Lenny bring you to drink?’

  We sat in the cockpit and sipped, and I listened while Mrs. Oppenheim and Johnson and Sullivan argued about the Atlas Lions, the Abiola Babes and the Pharaons of Egypt, who had been trained by a chap called John Michael Smith. Mrs. Oppenheim knew him. Mrs. Oppenheim knew everything about CAF, which stands for the Coupe d’Afrique de Football, for which eight African countries for fifteen days would be playing each other.

  I was furious. I remembered Mo Morgan abandoning me in the Place Jemaa-el-Fna. Sullivan, who ought to be catching out Johnson, was talking at the top of his voice and demonstrating moves with his feet, while Johnson appeared to have committed to memory the entire sports edition of every Moroccan-French newspaper. ‘L’ailier droit!’ he exclaimed, joining Sullivan’s excited exposition. ‘Vif comme l’éclair et dribbleur infatigable!’ Mrs. Oppenheim kept breaking into laughter and Sullivan kicked me by accident twice. It went on through the meal, which was extremely good. Towards the end, Johnson said, ‘Do you miss it, Muriel? Can’t get to all the big games now.’

  She had put on her bikini top and a jacket, and her style fitted in well, somehow, with Johnson’s linen and silver and cushions. Her hair had a natural sweep, and where it tapered, was white as Seb’s eyelashes. Oliver, in a fresh shirt, smiled at her as he poured the wine and took the dishes away, and she gave him a warm smile in return. The saloon was cool, and fitted with smooth, mellow wood, and there was an assortment of books behind latticework.

  Muriel Oppenheim said, ‘I do, of course. Dad doesn’t get any younger. But Daniel is good. He’ll up sticks and come if he can. He couldn’t really afford to come to Casa just now but he just did, and brought us.’ She smiled at me and Sullivan. ‘I was Daniel’s secretary before he persuaded me to marry him. He didn’t know he was marrying a football pitch.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Seb Sullivan said, ‘He knew a good thing when he saw it.’

  She was amused. ‘Loyalty, sex and good staffwork. That’s what a high flyer wants from his partner. Yes, Miss Helmann? And someone to check out his spelling.’

  Sullivan saved me from answering. He said suddenly, ‘Makes you wonder about Miss Rita Geddes. Who provides the sex and the staffwork and the spelling? Mr. Roland Reed, I suppose.’

  Without Sir Robert’s sanction, he was directly challenging Johnson Johnson. The Great Man, patting his pockets, failed to notice the challenge. ‘Rita? She told me she’d met you. Don’t ask me for any answers; Ellwood Pymm is the expert on sex. As for writing and staffwork, they all use an excellent secretary called Ella. So far as I know, she isn’t a lesbian. Does anyone mind if I smoke? We’ll have coffee on deck.’ He had a pipe in his hand, and his glasses were milky.

  Smoking is not allowed in Kingsley’s Boardroom. I supposed that pipes were much like my mother’s Gaulloises: worst when first lighted. Colonel Sullivan, after hesitating, had risen to go up on deck with the others. I asked to be excused.

  Instead of leading me to the front, where I had seen others going, Mrs. Oppenheim showed me to the master cabin that Johnson seemed to have given her. The washroom off it was clinical, and equipped with everything man or woman could want, neatly packaged. In all that economical space, the largest item was a medicine cabinet, surprisingly locked. I came out, and made up while she chatted. From what she said, Johnson and her husband didn’t see all that much of each other.

  I remembered Johnson saying that the invitation to Daniel Oppenheim’s party in London hadn’t been his; it had come from Muriel. At the same time, there was no doubt that Daniel Oppenheim had slept here last night: his things were all over the place. And he was coming back to share the cabin tonight. ‘Without JJ,’ she said. ‘It’s so silly: he works so hard, and he doesn’t need to. He has to go back tonight to be ready for painting tomorrow. They cancelled today.’

  I said, ‘But you and your husband are both staying on? It must be lovely.’

  She said, ‘It is, but no – we have to get back to my father tomorrow. We’ve taken a house in Marrakesh for the days between games. Dad has so many people to see. We did take him to Asni, and met one of your company men, Mr. Morgan. He’s coming to see Dad. I liked him.’

  Rita Geddes had mentioned the Oppenheims, and Morgan had said nothing at all about meeting them. Maybe, like me, he thought that Sir Robert had sufficient to worry about. Maybe he didn’t. Muriel Oppenheim said, rather abruptly, ‘Miss Helmann?’

  ‘Yes?’ I said. I waited, fortified by my courses. How to Recognise Signals. How to Define the Purpose, Style and Goal of your Communication. I was still afraid of what she was going to ask me.

  She said, ‘My family and Johnson’s have known each other for a long time. They’re lovely people. He’s given them a lot of worry, because of the kind of person he is. I hope you get on with him.’

  She had let me use her mirror to tidy my hair. I pleated the bandanna round it again. Like my mother, I tan very quickly. The dark glasses were leaving pale circles. I said, ‘I’m only Sir Robert’s secretary, Mrs. Oppenheim. I think he’s a wonderful painter.’

  She said, ‘He’s also a very good friend. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you that he’s Rita’s chief backer, but I expect you’ve guessed from what he was saying. He tells me that Kingley’s are making a bid for her company?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ I said. ‘Mrs. Oppenheim, company information is confidential.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But I wanted you to know that he’ll play it perfectly straight. I’m sure you know him by now. Has he tried to pump you? Exploit his advantage?’

  He hadn’t, of course. He’d lied, intrigued and tried to pinch our figures instead. I remembered she’d been a secretary too. I said, ‘No. Our association, of course, is purely formal. But it seemed strange that he actually came to Morocco without admitting the connection.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Muriel Oppenheim. ‘I rather thought he mentioned it just now.’

  ‘Because he knew that we knew. We very much want to help the MCG company,’ I said. ‘I know he doesn’t want Miss Geddes to sell, but it really would be best for her and her Board if they did.’

  She had very clear blue eyes. She said, ‘I don’t know if this has any bearing. But I know and like Charity Kingsley. And Jay has been Rita’s friend for ten years without at any point becoming anything closer.’

  ‘We heard rumours,’ I said. I kept it as friendly as she did.

  She said, ‘They won’t be the last. And if that smear doesn’t stick, others will. But remember that dirty tricks, once they start, work both ways. It’s up to you and the Board to protect Kingsley’s.’

  Loyalty, sex and good staffwork. She was of real executive calibre. I know and like Charity Kingsley, she had said. I wondered quite why. I wondered if Daniel Oppenheim had his weaknesses too, and she covered up for him. I thought, even if he had, she must have a wonderful life. I thought, as I’d thought all along, that the mess MCG had got themselves into wasn’t surprising, however good the competent Ella might be. It was led by a rough-spoken ill-groomed illiterate, and if Rita Geddes wasn’t one of the harem, then Johnson must have backed her for some other reason.

  I said, ‘Perhaps, when you’re rich, you don’t mind losing cash for the sake of a hobby. But if Mr. Johnson won’t let Sir Robert rescue them, the other MCG shareholders will lose even the poor returns that they’re getting. I don’t think that’s very fair.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Muriel Oppenheim. ‘Perhaps he’s heard rumours as well. But you’ll know more about that than I do, and as you said, you mustn’t talk about company problems
. Let’s go up, shall we?’ And she picked up her book and her oil.

  There was no one this time in the cockpit. Johnson and Sullivan were sitting on the harbour wall swinging their legs and discussing a boat, and the men asleep on the nets were now stirring. Sullivan stood, saying, ‘Well, the markets ought to be open. Shall we see if the great Canadian wave was receded?’

  Johnson, his pipe in his mouth, was watching Mrs. Oppenheim step to the deck from the cockpit, and bestow herself on the coach roof once more. He watched her quite objectively. I wondered where the crewmen had gone. I wondered about the young crewman, Oliver.

  I said, ‘Right, I’m ready.’ We thanked Johnson and when we left, he was back on board and swinging below, his pipe cocked between two unused fingers. Colonel Sullivan and I passed the car, and the Customs house, and made our way to the triple stone arches that lead through the walls to the town. I said, ‘I didn’t find anything. Mrs. Oppenheim says Miss Geddes and Johnson are just friends.’

  ‘She volunteered that?’ said Sullivan. ‘Why?’

  I had been wondering that. ‘To put us off the scent?’ I said reluctantly. ‘She sounded as if she believed it.’

  Seb Sullivan laughed. ‘Where have you been? People are never just friends. No. She didn’t want Johnson’s liaison with Rita Geddes made public. Why? Is she a mistress of Johnson’s?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She likes Johnson, I’d say, but that’s all.’

  ‘Likes him enough to want to block Sir Robert’s takeover?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Her husband once belonged to the firm that advised Kingsley’s. Perhaps he was opposed to a bid for MCG, and was overruled. Perhaps he and his wife still have some sympathy for Miss Geddes and Johnson. Sir Robert would know.’ I kept cool, as my mother would have expected. It was nothing to me if Johnson had a harem, and Seb Sullivan had only invited me here for company purposes. Preventing Job Burn-Out was the tape my mother bought first and played most. Maximising Return on Time Invested was the second.