Thirteen in the Medina

by Flora McGowan

  I was tempted to knock and then nip around the corner and see who answered when the door opened anyway. I looked down at my hands to see if they had knocked without me knowing but they were still down my sides.

  Keith was as surprised to see me as I was to see the door magically open.

  ‘I was just going for a walk,’ he murmured, almost to himself.

  ‘In this weather?’ I was aghast.

  ‘Come with me?’

  ‘It’s tipping it down!’ I was astounded. Did he have no windows in his room? It had been blowing a gale all through dinner.

  ‘Just along the seafront.’ The seafront! I thought of the chairs outside around the pool being buffeted by the wind and the attendants chasing round after them. ‘Come with me?’ He repeated. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. ‘I just want to go somewhere quiet.’

  In the end he agreed to let me in his room while we looked out the window and considered our options.

  Keith’s room was extremely tidy. Unlike the stereotypical assumption that men without their mothers to tidy up after them are messy, with dirty underpants and used coffee cups strewn everywhere, the only person I have ever met like that was my nephew. The boys I knew at university were more houseproud (and housetrained) than the girls; they were clean, tidy and could cook.

  We stood side by side at the window, elbows on the sill, gazing out at the grey storm clouds and the torrents of rain that were lashing the shoreline. Keith’s room was on the short connecting arm of the complex and, whereas my room looked directly across to the rooms opposite, his view was directly towards the sea. He laughed to think that he had not noticed the storm conditions, heard the squalling wind, nor the driving rain on the windows. He decided that perhaps, after all, a walk was not such a good idea. We agreed to stay in. Should we go back down to the bar? I did not really feel like another drink.

  ‘Let’s just stay here for a bit then,’ he suggested drawing the curtains back across the window. ‘You could stay…” he let the sentence trail off.

  We might be friends again but I did not feel that friendly.

  Chapter Fourteen – Thursday - Essaouira

  I woke up once during the night - in my own bed, in my own room. The temperature had dropped and I was feeling distinctly chilly. I got up to close the window that I had previously opened just a fraction for fresh air, as the wind and rain seemed now worse than ever. I hoped that by morning the storm would blow itself out.

  Next morning at breakfast Keith was back to his cheerful self. He sat at breakfast in a brightly coloured Tee shirt and garish shorts jauntily shovelling in All-Bran with yoghurt (had he taken the wrong tablets again?), and fresh fruit followed by scrambled eggs and sliced mushrooms on toast. He was contemplating the Danish pastries when Phil commented, ‘That boy’s got a healthy appetite this morning; what’s he been up to?’

  For no reason I felt guilty and avoided everyone’s gaze before Phil continued, ‘Thought Larry’d put a stop to that.’

  ‘Stop to what?’ Bob asked, amid some scuffling under the table and I imagined some kicking of ankles. I heard Bob mutter, ‘Oh,’ and then, ‘I’ll just get some more tea.’

  When I felt it safe to look up I met Nancy’s gaze.

  ‘Did you sleep well, dear?’ she enquired.

  I replied in the affirmation but was saved from having to give any more details by the appearance of Diane, who was in a “seen but not heard” mode. She sat at the next table quietly fending off enquiries about her health and stomach with a languid wave of the hand, as if that was all the energy she could muster. She allowed Larry to fetch her coffee and rolls, and then a second cup of coffee.

  I saw her eyes follow Keith as he left the room. She picked up her bag as if to go after him but Larry stayed her hand with a quick movement. For a second I thought I saw a flicker of fear in her eyes but then it passed, and she dropped her gaze and continued slowly stirring her coffee.

  Apparently, Hugh had stomach trouble this morning and was staying behind while the rest of us toured Essaouira. I suspected he realised it would be yet another trail, through yet another medina, and while it had stopped raining, it still looked rather grey. Shopping for some men can be a trial just mooching around shops, carrying bags and supplying money and I wondered if he had just decided to give it a miss and used the excuse of D&V so as not to hurt Abdul’s feelings with any slight against the Moroccan way of life.

  Abdul himself was very jolly this morning. We congregated in reception as he relayed the instructions for the day. He announced that if anyone found themselves lost they should look out for Keith, as he was a beacon who would guide them to safety.

  Keith looked a little hurt by this and asked sotto voce, ‘It’s not that bad is it?’

  I looked him up and down before replying. ‘Well, by themselves perhaps not, but together…’ I pulled a slight face. I asked him why he had bought the shorts, they were not the sort he would normally wear back home.

  ‘I went shopping with Colin,’ he explained. ‘He chose them.’ Which only goes to show you should never trust your holiday wardrobe to your three-year-old nephew. However, I relented that perhaps they grew on me. When we approached the coach, I insisted he pose on the steps, one leg raised whilst I took a photo.

  ‘Colin will want proof you wore them,’ I explained, as I showed him the shot once we were settled in our seats.

  Essaouira, explained Abdul in his little talk on the bus, as we drove the very short distance towards the town centre, is a UNESCO World Heritage Listed City, an example of a late eighteenth century fortified town built in North Africa by European colonists. Earlier it had been the site of a Portuguese settlement. The harbour entrance, we were due to tour after lunch, had in fact been built by an Englishman. Other parts of the town were constructed by the same French engineer who had constructed the Port of Saint-Malo in Brittany.

  Despite the fact that it had stopped raining and the wind had eased considerably, it was still damp under foot with rather large puddles in places. I found I was watching my feet as we walked as opposed to looking at the sights (market stalls and dingy little back street shops on occasion) or checking where my companions were. Keith, however, as Abdul had noted could be spotted at some distance.

  In an effort at protection the old walled-in medina is supposed to be free from motorised traffic, which meant we only had to watch out for and avoid the donkey-carts. In theory anyway; in practice there were also mopeds, which tried to whizz through the byways.

  One of the local crafts is woodworking. There were several little shops adapted into recesses built into the ramparts and from one of these I bought myself a little coaster set of highly polished discs of wood contained within a wooden cup-shaped stand. After looking at a selection of wooden children’s toys, flutes and spinning tops Keith bought himself a little box with a hinged lid, which he proudly said he could use to ‘put stuff in’ although he did not elaborate any further.

  Whilst Nancy and Karen looked at the silver jewellery on display, Bob and Ann were searching for ceramics. Many of the shops contained varying sized china tagines in a variety of colours. There were also dual tagines, two cone shapes attached together and even three, which, explained Abdul, could be used for storing spices. Ann said she wanted a larger one to hold crisps and nuts for dinner parties, - or space cakes suggested Graham with a smile - a thought which Abdul greeted with a slightly pained expression.

  When our purchases had all been paid for and safely tucked away in bags we proceeded up the ramparts; along one part of the coastline fortified ramparts stretched, punctuated every few feet by cannon aimed out towards the ocean. Keith and I took turns to pose for photographs with a cannon; I stood sedately to one side in mine whilst Keith stood suggestively astride. Carole, I think, was going to offer to take a picture of the two of us together but one glance at him with the monstrosity between his legs and she turned huffily and walked away.

  There was a little corner turret-like feature,
which we whiled away a few minutes going up tiny little steps and around a little viewing platform, which looked out onto waved lashed rocks, the spray mingling with the drizzle that had started to fall.

  We trooped back down the ramp to the lower levels and back into the city streets. Abdul steered us through the maze-like thoroughfares with an unerring sense of direction. Finally, he stopped outside a building that he announced was the riad where we were going to stop for lunch.

  Inside was a contrast to the grey day outside. The entrance hall was light and airy. A central pool was sunk into the floor, surrounded by massive palm trees that stretched up through three storeys to the glass-topped ceiling above. Abdul led us down a little corridor to the dining room, pointing out the toilets on the way.

  Lunch was the usual selection of mixed starters, the beetroot, carrot and cucumber, with the round flat loaves of bread indented into triangular portions, followed by a tagine of meat with vegetables and this time, peaches as dessert. We all eyed the peaches with their bruised and dried, shrivelled skins contemplating how many tourists this week they had been similarly offered to and declined.

  The afternoon was our scheduled stroll around the harbour. The drizzle had eased but the sky was still full of storm clouds. Seagulls screeched and flew everywhere, making me think of home for the first time in days, reminding me that our holiday was nearly over.

  Despite the weather the harbour was a hive of activity, but I suspected that most of the people were tourists like ourselves. I am not sure whether it was due to some kind of union rule but all the boats were painted an identical shade of blue. Everywhere there was a space it seemed little blue wooden fishing boats were secured; in some areas as long, neat rows, or bunched higgledy piggledy in others. I pondered how their owners could tell them apart. Maybe these boats were no longer in use; they looked a bit antiquated. And they were all moored. Obviously, the fishermen had better sense than to be out in the aftermath of a storm.

  I walked around the harbour with Keith, which was a sort of inverted U-shaped promontory, and then we slowly made our way back to the rendezvous area. There was nothing to see save the sea, seagulls and the little blue boats.

  Abdul gave us some free time to shop before it was time to go back to the hotel. Keith took me to one side and said he needed to buy something for Colin. I took this to mean he needed my help in choosing something suitable.

  We strolled back towards the medina, but instead of retracing our steps through the markets of the medina we had visited earlier we turned towards the direction of what looked more like shops and cafes. As we walked along the coastal promenade we watched hardy kite surfers being buffeted by the wind. Not my idea of fun. On the sandy beach deckchairs arranged in rows were unoccupied, their reed umbrellas bending in the stiff breeze.

  Keith linked his arm through mine and we sauntered along in amiable silence. I could hear the chatter of Ann and Karen coming from behind as they followed. Everyone it appeared, had shopping to do, gifts and souvenirs to buy that we had been unable to purchase during one of our many trips through the medinas. Before he made any purchases, however Karen had to help Keith withdraw yet more money from the cash dispenser, as the instructions were in French and my limited vocabulary did not extend to technical items.

  ‘I hope you are not developing into a secret drinker,’ I joked in an effort to discover why he needed to withdraw cash on such a frequent basis. The bottles of wine we drank with dinner we took turns in paying for, likewise for any pre-dinner drinks so I was unsure as to why he needed to withdraw cash on an almost daily basis. I remembered Nancy’s warning of a few nights ago and hoped that Larry had not succeeded in roping Keith into putting money into some sort of dubious business venture.

  ‘No, you know I’m not,’ he replied sullenly before he quickly pocketed his cash, thanked Karen for her help and strode off in the direction of the touristy looking shops.

  I moved to follow him, however Karen put a hand on my arm to hold me back and said, ‘I think he is only withdrawing small amounts at a time, perhaps he only has a low daily maximum limit.’

  Feeling somewhat relieved that there was a simple explanation for this (that did not involve other people) I hurried after him and as a conciliatory gesture offered to treat him to an ice-cream knowing that despite the inclement weather he would be agreeable to something to eat.

  After which, doting uncle that he is, Keith bought several gifts for Colin; a rather large (although not the largest available) stuffed camel, with long legs that reminded me of our brief expedition into the Sahara and then the evening that followed until I felt the flush on my cheeks and fanned myself quickly with the postcard of a long camel train that I had bought to send to the child. Then he decided to buy the boy a fez.

  ‘Fezes are cool,’ he explained. ‘Dr Who wears a Fez.’ But all I could picture in my mind was Tommy Cooper.

  Lastly, he bought a little ethnic drum that, when flicked by the finger, produced quite an authentic sound despite its minute size. I asked Keith if Colin’s mum would approve of a such noisy gift but Keith just shrugged and replied, ‘We’ll keep it at my place,’ and as Colin seemed to spend as much time staying with his uncle as he did with his mother I suspected that it would be just another one of many belongings that he stored there. Did Keith miss the lad I wondered? And again, I felt some unwanted pangs of jealously towards the child over the closeness of their relationship.

  That evening in the bar it was quiet. Well, there was no supplied “entertainment,” which meant the room was full of patrons chatting happily in the knowledge that they could hold conversations without hindrance.

  Our group congregated in one corner. Me and Keith, (sitting next to each other but not necessarily together), Karen and Graham, Ann and Phil, with Nancy and Hugh, who indeed had made a full and speedy recovery.

  We were discussing the fact that it was Friday the next day, and while the date was not Friday 13th, it would be the thirteenth day of our tour and there were thirteen of us (funny, but we never included Abdul in our number) and would that be unlucky?

  I remembered a recent Friday 13th – in July, when the Olympic torch relay had passed by my house, and in the days that followed I had had dark, erroneous thoughts that Keith was in fact Colin’s father and not his uncle. While the actual day may have been quite pleasant, the aftermath had not.

  Nancy claimed that it is a relatively recent superstition, being a combination of thoughts over thirteen being unlucky and Friday being unlucky – I don’t think that calmed our fears any. There seemed to be an inkling that something was going to happen. Though if this was supposed to be the calm before the storm – hadn’t we already had the storm?

  ‘In Spanish speaking countries it is Tuesday 13th,’ said Hugh, ‘and also the Greeks consider Tuesday an unlucky day.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Graham. ‘It is all due, I believe, to Mars, the Roman god of war, as in Mardi the French for Tuesday or Martes, in Spanish. Although for the Greeks it was due to the fall of Constantinople in the fourth Crusade by the invading Ottoman army, which took place on a Tuesday, on 29 May 1453 in fact.’ We laughed. I stared at Graham; for a slightly tubby, middle aged man who wore glasses and a dodgy hat on his holidays, he seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about a host of subjects. I mused whether his outward appearance masked a very astute individual.

  Therefore, as a sort of test I queried as innocently as I could, ‘So, why are Fridays regarded as unlucky?’

  Just for a second the amiable grin slipped from his face and not for the first time he produced a large handkerchief, removed his spectacles and proceeded to clean them in what, I suspected, was a delaying tactic, whilst he considered his reply. Then he replaced his glasses and stared directly at me for a second. I steeled myself to hold his gaze.

  ‘I think it came about that Fridays were unlucky days on which to begin or undertake journeys, as Jesus was crucified on a Friday, as in Good Friday,’ he replied, adding ‘There were also thirteen
people present at the Last Supper.’

  There was general nodding in agreement at this and Hugh commented that it was ‘one of those chicken and egg things’ – that actually less accidents are reported as less people travel and those who do are more careful.

  ‘In comparison,’ said Nancy, ‘twelve is considered a good number – there were twelve apostles, there are twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock.’

  ‘Twelve gods of Olympus and the twelve tribes of Israel,’ Graham remarked.

  ‘Twelve signs of the zodiac,’ Ann said brightly, pleased with her contribution to the discussion. However, there was a momentary silence and she looked around confused, wondering what faux pas she had committed, whereas it was only because having been seated on a different table for lunch she had not been party to our conversation of a couple of days ago.

  ‘Or thirteen,’ said Nancy, quietly.

  And for some reason, I added, ‘And thirteen in a witches’ coven,’ and our eyes slid in unison across the bar to where Larry sat with Diane.

  Chapter Fifteen – Friday - Return to Marrakesh

  Friday indeed turned out to be unlucky for some, and not just me. I am not sure if it was because we tempted fate by talking about it or whether it was just kismet.

  Breakfast was a slightly subdued affair. I was greeted by a rumour that Graham was unwell and, due to dehydration following a severe bout of diarrhoea and vomiting, had been whisked off to hospital - this from Hugh and Nancy who I bumped into at the top of the stairs; alternatively, that he had disappeared in the night following a tiff with his wife - Carole’s version whom I had bumped into in the long corridor.

  As I entered the dining room I immediately looked towards our table and noticed Karen eating breakfast with Larry and Diane. I collected fruit juice and a bowl of pineapple and pear pieces - why is it I only seem to eat healthily whilst on holiday? - and after wishing them a ‘Good morning’ took my seat. Other than to return my greeting no-one said anything and it was unusually quiet.