Page 46 of The Last Postcard

I couldn’t look at the party guests, though I heard exclamations from the ones who spoke Spanish, their mirth at my expense.

‘I hire in a chef when I need one, del Potro.’ Langham’s lip twitched. ‘Why should I employ you?’

‘Because your chef is bad. And a crook too, I’ll wager.’

That made his eyes narrow, his lips pinch a fraction.

‘What makes you say that?’

My heart was thumping beneath the bindings. ‘Because the fish I tasted tonight is half rotten,’ I said, with as much authority as I could. ‘Whoever cooked it has tried to hide the taste with too much dill. The cutlets were not much better. The butter used to make the sauce was rancid, the wine cheap. The grenadine in your drinks –’ I nodded towards a glass ‘– is fake. It’s just sugar and cochineal. I’ll bet whoever cooks for you takes your money, buys the cheapest he can get, and pockets the difference. Probably thinks you’ll all be too drunk to notice –’ I swallowed ‘– señor.’

The guests around the pool had fallen silent. I could feel the man who held my arm staring at me hard. I hadn’t meant to speak so freely, had lapsed into my old inn talk without even realizing. If I’d gone too far … Langham’s face revealed nothing. Slowly, he half turned his head to address the people behind him.

‘The lad claims the food I’ve served tonight is rotten,’ he called. ‘Is that true? Or is he having me on?’

There were coughs and mumbles as people took hasty sips of their drinks. Come on, you bastards, I told them silently, one of you must have noticed.

‘Well, I didn’t like to say,’ came a voice, crisp and clear in the night, ‘but that fish was rather ghastly.’

It was the woman in the pool, who stood peering up at us, her chin on her hands, hair dripping. She caught my gaze and her dark-stained lips curved into a smile.

‘Thank you, Lillian,’ said Langham. ‘Bouzid, what do you have to say about all this?’

The man who held my arm shrugged a little. ‘I do not know, monsieur.’ He hesitated. ‘It is true Monsieur Hubert arranged his own food delivery.’

‘Well,’ Langham said to his guests. ‘I’d be a poor host if I let you all go hungry. Shall it be trial by fire? Shall we give the boy a chance? Shall he cook us a midnight feast?’

Glasses were raised, people cheering in agreement. At the edge of the crowd I saw Lady Bailey, frowning at us. When I looked back, it was straight into Langham’s eyes as he smiled.

Tangier

July 1978

‘Hello?’

Sam stopped, one hand resting on a peeling wooden gate. It was open, which he hadn’t expected. Derelict buildings were usually boarded up. Unless it wasn’t derelict … But there were no signs of life, and the entrance had been overgrown. Still, he hesitated, staring at the curling iron name. Dar Portuna.

Once he stepped through the gate, he would be walking into reality, rather than the world of his imagination. Isn’t this what you wanted, he asked himself, looking down at the cracked stone threshold, where A might once have stood. The true story?

He snatched up the writing case from the dust, and stepped inside.

Green filled his eyes, a wilderness of green. He took a step forwards and smelled mint, crushed beneath his shoe. Weeds swarmed over a once-white path. Sun-baked grass hissed around old lavender plants. He pushed through them, past a fountain that stood, dry and silent.

He stopped to listen to the brief, questioning notes of birdsong, the drone of insects. It felt a thousand miles from the hot, dust-clogged streets of Tangier, and yet the casbah was just beyond the wall; if he listened carefully, he could hear the faint buzz of a moped, the blast of a ship’s horn, down in the harbour.

Pushing beneath the branch of an old, drooping lemon tree, he came face to face with the house.

It stood amongst the wilderness, surrounded and protected by it. Vines draped the doorframes, a rose bush had exploded from its bed to reach the windows. On one side, trees grew higher than the roof, shielding the house from any who might look over the walls. It must have been beautiful once, and to Sam, it still was, the perfection of the past in every line.

He walked on to a stone veranda. French doors stood closed, their glass miraculously unbroken, paint peeling from the lead frames. He couldn’t see inside; the early evening sun was painting every surface with light. Idly, he tried the handle, only for it to move. He snatched his hand back. It couldn’t be open. No one would leave a house like this open, for anybody to walk into. Carefully, he pressed the handle again. It grated, stiff in its casing, until finally the latch released and the door drifted towards him.

His intended call of Hello? died as the scent of the house billowed out, filling his mouth with must and old perfume and sweet, decaying leather.

He was looking into a lounge. A huge Moroccan rug stretched across the floor, its ornate patterns faded by the sun. Sofas stood around an empty fireplace, their satin cushions dulled by time, the lining sagging. In a corner stood a grand piano, furred with dust. Mesmerized, he stepped through the door. The rug absorbed his slow footsteps as he crossed the room, so that he might have been a ghost, drifting through the past.

Was there anyone here? He stopped, listening carefully, but heard nothing. Heavy velvet curtains, blooming with mould, were drawn over the opposite windows. Carefully, Sam drew them back, the brass rings sliding like bangles on a wrist. Light flooded the room, orange-pink with evening. Beyond was another garden, he could see tangles of roses, blood-red and flesh-pink, dripping colour, stone benches, fountains, and a path, leading into a wilderness …

Dar Portuna. Was this where A lived fifty years ago, where someone else must have lived, until recently? Ears straining for any sound, he crept over to the bookcase, looking for clues as to whether the house was inhabited. The books he found were disappointingly dull; volumes on fishing and a leather-bound encyclopaedia set, the red spines faded to pink. At one end of the shelf sat a small silver cup, tarnished and rimed with dust. Gingerly, he picked it up and wiped his thumb across the engraved letters.