Hotel Mirador Page 6

  When her purchases were delivered to her room, Sally was enchanted with the effect of continental wear on her long-limbed English figure. The prices were steep, but the things were worth it; she would certainly pay for them herself.

  She put the goods away, took a long glance at her neat blue reflection in the mirror and picked up the lavender-colored telephone.

  “Reception? This is Miss Yorke. Will you arrange for me to have the car, please? Thank you.”

  Ten minutes later, hatless and carrying nothing at all, she got into the car and gave instructions. They were moving round the drive when she noticed the silver and blue creation parked in the middle of a line of more ordinary vehicles. She leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “Does the big car belong to Mademoiselle Vaugard?”

  “But no,” he answered politely. “It is the private ear of Monsieur Ryland.”

  “And this one, that you’re driving?”

  “It is also monsieur’s.”

  Sally sat back. One for weekdays and one for best, it seemed. Or had Dane bought the silver and blue affair because it happened to combine Cécile Vaugard’s favorite colors? Maybe if she wore pink he’d turn up in a pink one! Strange to think that the woman lived here in the hotel but was seldom seen, though possibly Dane saw her fairly often. It appeared that, even if he wasn’t the marrying kind, he was as conscious as the rest of a beautiful woman. There were not so very many different kinds of man, after all!

  Determinedly, she took a lively interest in the tortuous streets and the hillside, which lay glittering under the sun. She saw a shrine that she hadn’t noticed yesterday, and a beautiful Moorish house, which must belong to some notability, possibly the Caid. Even speeding past it in a car, she could see pillars of bright mosaic tiles, and an expanse of sculptured stone above an elegant doorway. One day, perhaps, she would have an opportunity of looking over such a house. She hoped so.

  But as they turned on to the small drive outside Mike Ritchie’s house, Sally brought all her mind to bear on the present. She told the driver to park in the shade and wait, walked lightly up into the little terrace and reached in to knock at the open door. Then she took a step into the small hall and stood there in its coolness, waiting for something to happen.

  The thin youth who had yesterday been clipping the shrubs came into view from a corridor. He bowed, said nothing and walked away, to return within a minute.

  “Monsieur is sorry, but he cannot see you, mademoiselle. Please be seated and I will bring some tea.”

  Sally shook her head. “No tea, thank you. Tell Mr. Ritchie I’ll wait till he’s free.”

  The servant looked uncertain, but disappeared. Again he materialized, bearing a tray which held the glass of mint tea which is indispensable even to the poorest hospitality in Morocco. Sally accepted it and placed the glass on a dark carved table. She sat in a chair which was uncomfortably but cleverly thonged in many-colored leather, crossed her ankles and relaxed as if she had all the time in the world. The servant hovered, swung his tray and vanished once more. Sally tried the mint tea and wondered if she would ever come to find it refreshing, as others did. She picked up an inlaid cigarette box and examined it, admired the panel of Moorish embroidery which hung on the wall above the table.

  Ten minutes ticked by, fifteen, twenty. Twice the servant’s head appeared round the corner of the corridor, and twice he stared at her perplexedly and withdrew. Then, finally, came the sound for which Sally’s ear had been waiting; a faint' rumble and squeak on the tiled floor. The invalid chair rolled into view and Mike Ritchie, a red lock drooping over his brow, came to a halt about a yard from Sally’s chair, and glared at her.

  “What do you want?” he demanded.

  She smiled, as if totally unaware of his anger. “Oh, good morning, Mr. Ritchie. I’m so glad you could see me. I’m alone today, and thought we might have a talk.”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “Good heavens,” she said with a show of surprise. “I don’t pity you. You pity yourself so much that there’s no need for anyone else to waste any on you. I came to correct a little misunderstanding. I’m not a nurse.”

  “No? Then what are you!”

  “A physiotherapist. You must have met one before, at (the hospital.”

  “There was a muscular creature of about fifty—no one like you.” He lifted his head and gazed through the doorway at the hot greens and reds of the garden. “All right. Say what you came to say.”

  “Right here in the hall?” He didn’t answer, so she went on casually, “Well, it was like this. Mr. Ryland was very worried about you because you wouldn’t go back to hospital for further treatment. He consulted the specialist who set your various bones, and was told you needed physiotherapy; but there was no one here in Morocco who could help you. So Mr. Ryland advertised in England, and eventually engaged me. I may not look it, but I’ve had quite a lot of experience.”

  “Not with my sort of trouble.”

  “You mean the mental part—no, perhaps not.”

  He looked at her fleetingly. “What do you mean—mental part?”

  She gave him her most disarming smile. “You see, I deal mostly with children, and they don’t have mental troubles over their condition. They’ve had polio, accidents, diseases of the bone and nerves, but in the hands of someone wearing a white overall they’re thoroughly contented and relaxed. It’s so much easier to help someone who believes in everything.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Yet you’re behaving like a certain type of child—the pampered type. We got a few of them at the Orthopaedic Home, but they’d mostly been tamed in hospital before we dealt with them. You’re older, and therefore more stubborn.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Well, no, it’s only the beginning, but I didn’t come to deliver a lecture, only to point out that with patience you’ll probably be able to walk with one stick in less than six months. It seems so silly to refuse even to try it out.”

  “I know that whatever I go through I’ll always be a cripple.”

  “At least you have your own leg, not an artificial one.” She paused, her glance on his prematurely lined face. “You wouldn’t want to be an emotional cripple as well, would you?”

  There was a brief silence. Mike had tensed suddenly, as if startled and wary, but after a moment he spoke a little unevenly.

  “I sensed yesterday that you see a little farther than most girls, and that’s why I wanted you to stay away. Just leave me alone with it!”

  She answered in reasoning tones, “I can’t really. Mr. Ryland brought me here by air and he’s given me a magnificent suite in the hotel. It’s a costly business for him, and the least I can do is peg away at you till you give me a chance of doing all I can for you.” Ostentatiously, she opened the cigarette box and showed him it was empty. “May I have one?”

  He took a box of fifty from his pocket, automatically flipped it open. She waited while he thumbed his lighter, leaned forward just a little so that he could light her cigarette, and stayed there, smiling at him. Mike drew back and lit his own cigarette, and she saw the fingers of his left hand curl rather tightly over the curved wooden arm of the wheel chair.

  “What has Dane told you about me?” he asked offhandedly.

  “That you’re twenty-six, a journalist, were keen on fast cars and attractive girls. I think he was rather disappointed that I’m not prettier.”

  “You might have been forty and tough.”

  “Oh, no, he took care of that. His advertisement insisted on a photograph. I happened to be the least ugly.”

  Mike ignored the unintended cue. “It’s my fault you’re here. If you want to leave, I’ll offer Dane what it cost him to bring you.”

  Sally was vexed, but determined not to show it. “I don’t want to leave; I simply want to do the job I’m engaged for. Tell me, do you always stay indoors?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “How do you spend the time?”

&nb
sp; “Reading and playing chess with an old chap who lives down the road.”

  “I play chess too, but not very well.” She tapped ash into a tiny bowl, and then held the bowl near him so that he could do the same. “This is a lovely little house. I suppose the Frenchwoman who made the garden furnished the place as well?”

  “I believe so. Dane bought it more or less as it stands.”

  “For you?”

  “For himself, probably.”

  “But he told me he wants nothing better than to live at the Mirador without domestic ties.”

  He shrugged. “Have you met Cécile Vaugard?”

  Queerly, Sally’s breath caught for a second in her throat. “No, but I’ve seen her. She’s ravishing.”

  “She’s also a magnetic singer—and pure French. She’s the only woman Dane ever bothers with, so one day—seeing that he always tries everything once—he’ll take a wife, probably Cécile. When she’s in Shiran, they’ll live in this house, and for the rest of the year Dane will let a friend live here and go back to his suite at the Mirador.”

  “It doesn’t sound much like marriage.”

  “But it will be as much as Dane will want.” He gave a swift, irritable tug at the wheels of the chair and slipped back a yard or so. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Am I too inquisitive? I was quite enjoying the gossip.” She squashed out her cigarette, dusted grains of ash from her skirt. “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “No.” The thin line of his jaw tightened, emphasizing a chin which was narrow and a little obstinate. “In the course of several months one can evolve a new way of living.”

  “I suppose so, if it’s necessary. But with you it isn’t. You’re just a mule, and unfortunately you’re hurting yourself most.”

  “You don’t say it the way Dane does, but then you’re a girl and you haven’t his colorful vocabulary.”

  “It doesn’t matter how it’s said, if it’s true.” She paused, and added clearly, “I’d like to come and see you with the doctor. Is that all right?”

  “No.”

  “Will you allow me to give you some ordinary hand massage?”

  “What’s the good? I’ve tried it myself and it doesn’t to a thing.”

  Sally sat very still. This was die first indication that he really wanted to help himself and she knew, intuitively, that he had never mentioned it to anyone else. One had to be casual with him, casual to the point of uncaringness.

  “I’ll send you some massage oil and you can try again. And, if you like, I’ll show you some exercises to keep the rest of you in trim.”

  He sounded quite nasty as he said, ‘Trying to earn your keep?”

  She stood up. “Don’t blame me, do you? As a matter of fact, you aren’t the only reason I came to Morocco. I’m trying to get in touch with an old friend of mine, and when I do, I shall probably fade out of Shiran. I only wish I knew more about die country.”

  Mike said morosely, “I’ve been around. What part of it interests you?”

  ‘Tangier.”

  “It’s a sprawling, complex city. Have you got your friend’s address?”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell you about it some time—if you’ll let me come again, that is. If not, I’ll battle through on my own.”

  His glance flickered over her. He reached out and stubbed his cigarette in the bowl. “Are you thinking of going to Tangier?”

  “Not yet. If I do decide to go, I’ll find out more about It. May I come again, Mr. Ritchie?”

  “It’s a waste of time, but please yourself,” he said ungraciously.

  “Very well, I will. Tomorrow at ten—and please don’t try to fob me off with mint tea!”

  “That’s the servant’s idea. Don’t you like mint tea?”

  “It could grow on one, I suppose. It reminds me of tea in an English cottage—it’s so different.” She moved towards the door, and then turned. “I read an article of yours last night, and found myself smiling more than once. For a man with a sense of humor you’re horribly grim in the flesh, Mr. Ritchie ... or may I call you Mike?”

  “Call me what you like,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.

  Sally looked down at him with compassion, but knew better than to touch him or the chair. He had lived with his defeat for so long that even the smallest battle was exhausting. Still, he had to fight, and she knew that the first onslaughts were the worst; once past them he would smile again and gather courage.

  “Goodbye,” she said softly, and went out into the blinding sunshine.

  As the driver set the car moving away from the house, Sally tried to gauge whether she had accomplished anything. Very little, she decided, but Mike was stirred and that went to the credit side. He gave so little away that it was difficult to pin-point the things which would really get under his skin.

  Yet she was sure that before his accident Mike had been a normally high-spirited and gregarious young man, inventive, lively and full of fun. It was going to be quite a task, though, to convince him that he could be his normal self again. The loss of the power to walk and drive had stripped him of self-confidence, and the girl in whom he had been interested at the time had let him down so badly that he imagined himself as being unattractive to women for the rest of his life; it hadn’t been that particular girl who mattered—only the fact that she had abandoned him in his most sensitive moment. And there was his job. He was the type to have loved the dashing about in North Africa, the interviewing spiced with danger.

  Sally vowed to do all she could for Mike. Physiotherapy, die thought, would be the least of it!

  At the hotel she went upstairs and washed, looked out upon the now deserted swimming pool and told herself that she would swim before dinner tonight, in the dark. Though it was so hot she hadn’t yet bathed at all, simply because the beaches seemed to be used solely by men, and the swimming pool by the rich hotel guests. She would have to work it out

  * * *

  The evening swim in the huge and magnificent pool was an excellent idea, Sally decided, as she took off her white bathrobe and pulled a cap over the bronze curls. The grounds were cool and scented, a faint breeze ruffled the water, and the only figures in sight were those of the servants moving between the balconies and the lower regions. She dived in and found the water warm and caressing, and far more buoyant than she had imagined. It was piped sea-water. She swam and floated, looked at the jewelled sky and told it she hadn’t a trouble in the world. At least, nothing really sizeable. There seemed to be one or two little things fretting at the back of her mind, and there were moments when she felt really anxious about Lucette, but on the whole she was beginning to find life almost tranquil here in Shiran.

  She found herself accepting the foreignness of the place. The call of the muezzin was romantic at first, and then hardly noticeable, the smells became part of the atmosphere, and how could a coastal town of Morocco possibly be complete without the veiled women and the men in white and striped djellabahs, the comical camels, the street-venders and fortune tellers, the cobblestones and crenellated walls? Sally was willing to accept them all.

  She lay on her back, moving her arms lazily in cartwheel circles and watching the droplets slide from her fingers in the darkness. Then, distinctly, she felt a tickling sensation at the sole of her foot, and she pulled up her knees and sank them, to come face to face with Dane. Dane, who looked like a wet, mocking mask carved from mahogany.

  “Hallo,” she said. “I thought you swam in the mornings.”

  “I do, but I came out on to my balcony ten minutes ago and saw something interesting in the pool. It turned out to be you.”

  “Who did you think it was?”

  “You.”

  She laughed. “Such flattery, Mr. Ryland! You came down to save bothering with a shower.”

  “Maybe. Come on out. I want to talk to you.”

  “Right now?”

  “It’s possibly the only place and time we can’t be interrupted—everyone’s too bus
y making themselves handsome for dinner. Come to the side, I’ll pull you up.”

  But Sally swam farther, to where her robe had been dropped, and by the time she reached the spot where Dane was crouching on the side of the pool and extending a hand. She took the leap and landed beside him, felt him sling the robe about her shoulders before he slipped down and sat as she did, with feet dangling in the water.

  “I didn’t bring any cigarettes. Do you mind?”

  “No. Talk away.”

  “Give me time, little one. Even I prefer a few preliminaries occasionally. Is this your first dip in the pool?”

  She nodded and pulled off her cap, shook back her hair. “It’s delicious, isn’t it? But I’m hoping to bathe in the sea some time. Your hotel guests don’t seem to bother much with the beach.”

  “The Moors don’t care for scantily-clad women, so we discourage communal bathing, excepting in our own grounds. But there are some lovely wild beaches along the coast where people picnic and swim in families. I’ll take you some time.”

  “Why, thanks! I’ll hope to deserve it.”

  He gave her a sidelong, calculating glance. “What does that mean—that you were unsuccessful with Mike this morning? You didn’t report, so I took it you’d drawn another blank.”

  Sally took the scuff of the terry-cloth robe between her fingers and rubbed an itch from her chin. “I don’t think I did, actually. Mike told me a few things and he didn’t tell me not to come again. He’s terribly touchy, of course, but so heartily sick of himself that I believe he’ll talk again. Why don’t you go up and see him more often?”